Sunday Soup Recipe

Minestrone Soup

My friends and family will tell you that I have never been one for cooking. In fact, my first year of college, I would go home every weekend and my dad would cook food for me, measure out everything in meal sized portions, then freeze the food in individual Ziploc bags to be taken back to my townhouse. It was only after transferring to a farther school my sophomore year that driving home every weekend was no longer an option, causing my weekly homemade food packages to be discontinued.

While I did know how to whip up a few things (basic spaghetti, fried rice made from frozen or canned ingredients, and taco meat), I was zero percent enthusiastic about actually doing the prepping and cooking needed to make these meals. I wanted something quick and easy that would also help me lose the extra weight I put on my first year. So, I turned to salad.

Salad became my main food group from my sophomore year until...well, recently. I only had to "prep" the ingredients once a week when I first bought everything, then after that, I just threw together all of the chopped-up veggies. To some, the thought of eating a salad for lunch and dinner every day sounded like a form of punishment, but I genuinely liked salad, and would go out to dinner if I ever found myself tired of it.

It wasn't until the end of last year that I decided it was time to branch out. One of my 2019 New Year's resolutions was to learn to cook three meals. It did not matter what they were or what level of difficulty they were as long as I learned to make them well. To my surprise, I ended up doing pretty well with that goal. So this year, I set the same goal but increased my number to five new things.

I have been sharing the progression of my cooking skills with my personal circle of friends, but I decided that it was time to share it here with all of you as well! So here we go!

Minestrone Soup

What you'll need -

1 Bay leaf

1 cup carrots

1 cup celery

1 tbsp garlic

1 cup green beans (I used haricot verts)

15 oz kidney beans, red

1 tsp oregano

2 tsp parsley

2 sprigs rosemary

28 oz tomatoes, with juice canned

1 cup yellow onions

1 cup yellow squash

1 cup zucchini

2 tbsp tomato paste

4 cups vegetable stock, unsalted

1 cup pasta

1 tbsp salt

1 tbsp black pepper

1 tbsp olive oil

 

 

Still being a bit of a novelty chef, I usually only try recipes that are very well laid out with extremely specific step-by-step instructions. This particular recipe just gave an outline, and told you what the original cook thought was most important as far as what order to introduce each ingredient to the pan. I was quite nervous I would end up with a large pan of inedible vegetable mush, but soon realized that it is very hard to mess this up.

Once you've got everything chopped up, heat a large pan with olive oil and sauté the onions, garlic, squash, zucchini, celery and carrots. Sprinkle in your salt and pepper.

A little multitasking is involved here, as you should start simmering your green beans.

While the green beans are simmering, add in the kidney beans to the pan(the recipe noted that these should be added only at this point to ensure the beans retain their shape), then add the green beans once they are just under crisp-tender and are bright green. Since there was only one more step listed on the recipe, and it had to do with the pasta, I figured this was as good of time as any to add the tomatoes, tomato paste, and vegetable stock.

 

At this point, I started boiling the noodles and sprinkled in all of the herbs.

 

Then spoon in the noodles.

Give it a few final stirs and let it sit for a few minutes to make sure it is evenly cooked and all of the goodness is soaked into every ounce, then serve.

Quick, easy, and perfect for the tail-end of this New York winter!

While I won't be creating my own recipes anytime soon, I am looking forward to testing my hand at other's recipes throughout this year!

Vivre dans le luxe,
Jordin