MONDAY RECIPE POST - TUSCAN MINESTRONE - new post

We eat a lot of soups once the weather starts getting chilly.  Here is another one you may like to try.

I made it for the first time on Friday, February 20th, 2015 (from my archives).  It had been bitterly cold and definitely a day for a hot bowl of comforting soup.  I found the recipe at "Never Enough Thyme", hosted by Lana.  The original recipe can be found here.

Tuscan Minestrone

Preparation time: 20 minutes
Cooking time: 45 minutes
Total time: 1 hour 5 minutes

1 medium onion, diced
1 large carrot, peeled and sliced
1 celery rib, sliced
3 garlic cloves, minced
2 cups shredded green cabbage
1/4 cup chopped fresh parsley
3 tablespoons chopped fresh basil
1/4 cup olive oil
5 cups vegetable stock
28 oz. canned diced tomatoes
2 teaspoons dried Italian seasoning
1 bay leaf
1 Parmesan rind (optional)
1 small zucchini, diced
1 15 oz. can garbanzo beans, drained and rinsed
1/4 lb. tender green beans, trimmed and cut into 3/4 inch pieces
1/4 lb. small shell shaped pasta
Salt and pepper to taste
1/2 cup freshly grated Parmesan, for garnish

Prepare all your ingredients.

Peel and chop up your veggies and have it ready and waiting, measuring out the pasta and even opening up the cans.  I also grate the Parmesan cheese ahead of time and refrigerating until I am ready to put the meal together.

Prepare the onion, carrot, celery, garlic, cabbage, parsley and basil and set aside.

In a large stock pot or Dutch oven, heat the olive oil over medium-high heat.

Add the onion, carrot, celery and garlic.

Cook, stirring frequently, for 3 to 4 minutes or until the onion is translucent.

Add the cabbage and cook, stirring, for 1 additional minute.

Add the vegetable stock, tomatoes, parsley, basil, Italian seasoning, bay leaf and if you are using it, the Parmesan rind.

Bring to a boil, then reduce the heat to low and simmer, partially covered, for 30 minutes.

Add the zucchini, garbanzo beans and green beans and simmer for an additional 10 minutes.

Remove and discard the bay leaf and Parmesan rind.

While the soup simmers, bring a large pot of salted water to a boil over high heat, and cook the pasta according to the package directions.

Drain.

Add the cooked pasta to the soup pot and season the soup to taste with salt and pepper.

Don't forget to throw out the bay leaf

Serve immediately.

Pass the grated Parmesan separately.

An excellent soup and I made a few changes.

At the time I had no fresh sweet basil but did have the dried in the pantry, which I used instead, adding a good heaping tablespoon.  Put in as much or as little to suit your own taste.

I had a bag of frozen sliced okra in the freezer, and wanting to use what I had in stock, I substituted the okra for the zucchini.  I think I would have preferred the zucchini, but you never know until you try, and my Dear Other Half preferred the okra.

The flavor of the broth was especially delicious, and I am wondering if it was because of the Parmigiano-Reggiano rind that I used.  

When I had added the okra, garbanzo beans and green beans, after cooking them for the additional ten minutes, the green beans were still not cooked enough for our tastes.  I added on 15 more minutes and they were perfect.

There was a lot of prep work in this meal but I start early in the day, covered the chopped veggies until ready to prepare.  It seems less of an effort that way.

We served this with a crusty loaf called Rustic Batard and is our current favorite.  It was a very nice accompaniment to this soup.

Thanks for looking and enjoy your day!

Monday Recipe Post - Classic Homemade Minestrone

Yay! It is the first day of Spring.

Happy Spring Everyone!

The day was chilly and cold when I made this soup (Wednesday, March 9th, 2022). I found it at The Kitchen Magpie hosted by Karlynn Johnston.  You can find the original at her website here.  I enjoyed browsing through her many recipes, and it was a wonderful soup, one we will be making again.

Classic Homemade Minestrone Soup Recipe

Serves 8

Calories: approximately 126 per serving

The following is a guideline.  It usually takes me longer to prepare the ingredients than what is stated.  I don't time myself, I just start early enough, and spread my prep time out in stages.  

Preparation time: 20 minutes 

Cooking time: 40 minutes

Total time: 1 hour

2 tablespoons butter

1 small white onion, chopped

½ cup chopped celery

1 cup chopped carrots

1 cup diced zucchini

½ cup fresh green beans, chopped

1 tablespoon minced garlic

1 (19 ounce) can cannellini beans (white or red, drained and rinsed (I used garbanzo beans)

1 (28 ounce) can diced tomatoes, and also add its juice to the pot 

2 tablespoons tomato paste

1-1/2 cups cubed Russet potatoes

½ cup shredded cabbage (optional)

4 cups vegetable broth

2 teaspoons Italian seasoning

½ cup small pasta shells

½ cup grated Parmesan cheese

1 teaspoon salt, or to taste

Black pepper, to taste

In the bottom of a large soup pot, on medium-high heat, melt the butter.  

Add in the onion and fry until softened.

Add in the celery, carrots, zucchini, green beans and minced garlic. Fry until the garlic is fragrant, two to three minutes. 

Add in all of the remaining ingredients except for the pasta shells. Mix everything completely.

Simmer on the stove until the vegetables are tender, around 20-30 minutes. Once they are tender, add the uncooked pasta. 

Simmer for another 9-10 minutes until the pasta is cooked to your liking.

Remove from the stove. 

Ladle into bowls and serve topped with a sprinkle of Parmesan, but let it sit for as long as it takes not be too hot to eat.

What did we think?  Delicious!  You can change the vegetables to use your own favorites.  I kept them to what was already listed, except I didn’t use the cabbage, which was optional.

I usually add extra vegetables, and consequently more broth, how much to your own taste so you be the judge on that. We love lots of veggies and I put in an extra handful of pasta, plus added more tomato paste.  

I had a can of garbanzo beans in the pantry.  I used that instead of going to the store just for a can of cannellini.

For the pasta there was half a packet of Lumache left from another recipe (see above before cooking).  I bought mine on Amazon at this link, and the package can be seen below.

It is larger than the normal pasta shell we buy, and we like it very much.  It seemed to take longer to cook than what it said on the package.  I like al dente but it was too al dente for both our tastes.  Here again, you be the judge as you may like it that way  

I read the following at this website.

"Another shell-shaped pasta, lumache is actually named after a snail.  Many Italian chefs looked outside their kitchen window for pasta inspiration, basing their forms on the plants, animals and apparently snails around them.  This cut has a cool shape with a pinched end, which helps trap sauce in the main part of the shell.  It comes in sizes ranging from tiny snails to the Brazilian rain-forest, man-eating monster jumbo lumache size."

I can attest to the fact that it traps the sauce, or as in our case, both vegetables and soup, as the smaller pieces of vegetable did fall inside and filled up with hot liquid.  This, however, only added to its enjoyment.  I advise caution if your soup is hot.  It is a good idea to cool it as we would any meal, before eating.  

It goes on to say: 

"Originally they are from the Piedmont region of northwest Italy.  Bordering France, the love of snails is a francophone influence, or people starving in that area weren't picky back in the day.  The Cherasco snail festival takes place here every year.  Intrepid hunters of these shelled gastropods will also collect wild mushrooms and truffles along the way.  Though truffles only give off a detectable odor a few times a day and are below ground.  So unless you have a dog or a pig with you at the right time, good luck."

This last part made me smile because I once read years ago that truffle hunters had such difficulty trying to get truffles away from the pigs, that they started training dogs instead.  I found information on truffles at this website. It is very interesting but there are a lot of advertisements.

I have gone on a bit, but if we eat something that I am not familiar with and in this case, not the regular pasta we would normally put in a soup, my curiosity gets peaked.  I start looking into that particular food's history which can lead me elsewhere, as in this case, truffles.  

There were leftovers and it was even better the next day. The pasta shells get a little bit larger as they absorb the soup, but do not lose in texture, and definitely not in taste.

We shared a French roll which I cut in half lengthwise, spread with a little butter, a sprinkling of garlic powder and grated Parmesan cheese.  I toasted the halves under the broiler for a couple of minutes, until the top started getting brown. You can also use a slice of regular bread instead of the roll, which we have done several times over the years.   

That's it!

I wish you all a happy and healthy week.