January 18, 2011

Pasta Fagioli

I have said it before & I will say it again… soup is one of those things that you can just play with and can’t really mess it up too badly! Pasta Fagioli is a soup that has beans, tomato, & pasta – but once you have those basics, you can pretty much play around to get what you like! We are currently experiencing Snow Day #3 in the past three weeks: so you probably have [most of] what you need to make this soup and enjoy it (maybe even by lunch!) This was the perfect (snow day #2) meal to enjoy with my no-knead bread after playing out in the snow!

I made this soup with some crumbled sausage, but feel free to make a vegetarian version. It is a good healthy soup: hearty and filling but not loaded with cream or fats (yes, I know it has pasta: but we need starch and pasta does not have to be the enemy)! Get off the computer (or maybe look at some other recipes first if this one doesn’t seem ‘perfect’ for you), get in the kitchen and enjoy this tasty soup (reminds me of an even tasty version of that popular Italian restaurant) today

Ingredients:

  • 2 tablespoons olive oil
  • 1 small onion
  • 1 or 2 finely chopped garlic cloves
  • 1/2 pound sausage
  • ½ bag baby carrots or 2 regular carrot
  • 2 stalks celery
  • SPICES: 1 teaspoon rosemary, 1 teaspoon thyme, 2 teaspoons oregano, 2 teaspoons parsley, 2 bay leaves
  • salt & pepper
  • 2 cans beans (today I did a mix of  small red kidney beans and cannellini beans)
  • 1 can (28 oz) diced tomatoes
  • 1 quart chicken stock (and add water if its too thick)
  • 1 ½ cups pasta (tubetti, mini shells, etc)
  • [fresh] parmesan cheese

Directions:

Heat oil over medium heat in large pot. Add onion and garlic and cook until softened. Add sausage and cooked until browned, stirring often. Add carrot, celery, spices, beans, tomatoes, water, and stock. Add salt and pepper to taste.
Simmer with lid off for at least 45 min. Remove bay leaves (if used). In a separate pot cook pasta to ‘just less than’ al dente stage. Drain pasta and toss with a very small amount of olive oil to prevent sticking [OR just throw in soup right away]. When serving: [add pasta and] top with a shaving of parmesan.
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I leave you with a Mark Twain quote: “Work and play are words used to describe the same thing under differing conditions.” – so: take a lazy, cold day to play and have fun with something you might normally think of as work!
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Filed Under: Italian, soup
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