Minestrone Soup | Soup Recipes

Minestrone (pronounced min-NESS-throw-nay) is a hearty Italian Soup made with vegetables, beans and pasta (or rice). There is no set recipe for this soup but the basic recipe has vegetables (and/or meat), vegetables in season and different types of beans. I have used the vegetables I had at hand with a combination of black-eyed beans and garbanzo beans. It calls for a very simple preparation with a variety of flavoring. This makes a whole meal in itself and we enjoyed it for Saturday night dinner to keep ourselves warm when it was snowing outside. Yes it was snowing in October here!!

Ingredients:
Serves - 4-5
Vegetables:
Onion - Chopped fine - 1/2 cup
Garlic - 2 cloves - chopped fine
Carrots - 2 - cubed - 1/2 cup
Cauliflower florets - 1 cup
Potato - 1 small - cubed - 1/2 cup
Baby Spinach - 1/2 cup - packed tightly
Tomato - 1 - cubed
For flavoring:
Vegetable Stock - 4 cups (I used 2 Knorr Bouillon cubes with 4 cups of water) 
Red pepper flakes - 1/2 tsp
Salt and Pepper - to taste
Butter - 1 tbsp
Olive oil - 1 tbsp
For the texture:
Pasta - any short cut variety - 1/2 cup (I used Mini Penne)
Blackeye peas / Cowpeas - cooked - 1 cup 
Garbanzo beans / White Sundal - cooked - 1 cup

Method:
Heat butter and olive oil in a wide saucepan and saute the onion and garlic until it is transparent. Add cauliflower, carrot and potatoes in the said order frying for 2 mins after each addition. Add baby spinach and stir until it wilts. Add the red pepper flakes, pepper, beans and the vegetable stock. Check for salt and add if needed, note that the stock would already contain salt. Add the tomatoes and cook covered until it boils. Add the pasta and cook in medium heat until the pasta is cooked and soft. Simmer for about 5 minutes and serve hot with your favorite bread. 
Note: You can add any vegetables of your choice. Feel free to add seasonal vegetables. Red kidney beans is also an excellent addition. I mashed about a tablespoon of cooked garbanzo beans and cowpeas and added it to the soup for thickness. I used canned beans.

Sending this to Srivalli's Soups and Salads Mela and to Radhika's Winter Carnival.