Pasta e Fagioli
Sunday night we had some left over chicken broth, a few vegetables leftover from dinner the night before, some beans in the cabinet, along with some pasta and decided to make some Pasta e Fagioli soup. This is one of my favorite soups because it is so versatile, you can add whatever vegetables you happen to have. If you don’t have beans it becomes minestrone. It’s fairly simple and easy to make.
The recipe calls for 2 cups of aromatic vegetables (carrots, onions, and celery), I used a little of all, but you could use whatever you have handy. It also calls for 2 cups of hard vegetables, we used potatoes and a winter squash we had leftover from our winter CSA. I didn’t add any this time, but in the past i’ve added a cup or two of leafy vegetables like spinach or kale. I also threw in a bit of pesto we had made and frozen last summer.
I’ve adapted this recipe from How to Cook Everything Vegetarian
1/2 cup of fresh parsley chopped (optional) Fresh ground parmesan (optional) 1 tsp of minced garlic (optional)
Put oil in a large saucepan over medium heat. When hot add the onions, carrots and/or celery. Cook stirring until soft, about 5 minutes.
Add the hard vegetables (potatoes, winter squash, turnips, etc.) to the saucepan, sprinkle with salt and pepper to taste. Add the stock or water and tomatoes and bring to a boil. Cook for 15 minutes stirring occasionally.
Add the cooked beans, pasta, leafy vegetables and parsley to the saucepan and adjust temperature so the mixture simmers. Cook for 15 minutes until the vegetables are soft.
Taste and adjust seasonings with salt and pepper, or minced garlic. Sprinkle parmesan on top if desired.
This entry was posted on Tuesday, February 17th, 2009 at 5:39 pm and is filed under Recipes. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.
February 17th, 2009 at 7:36 pm
It looks delicious!! I love your blog and I am so excited to read it!!
February 17th, 2009 at 7:39 pm
Thanks Bione!!! Let me know if you decide to make the soup and how it turns out… Hope you are well in St. Louis!
February 17th, 2009 at 7:45 pm
Yummy - sounds good. I love recipes like this that are simple and flexible because I’m really not good at cooking without a specific recipe in mind so something this simple is perfect. How was the winter CSA? We didn’t get a winter share this year because we were going to be out of town, but I’m thinking about it for next winter. I’m really into organic dairy, eggs, and meat now too. In fact, those are more important to me than vegetables healthwise because I’m really freaked about all the antibiotics and cow feces and what not in everything. How about you guys? Have you found any good places to buy local organic meat and dairy? Our CSA partners with other local farms that sell meat and dairy, which I’ve started ordering sometimes. It’s really expensive though. It’s sad to me that local products always seem to cost a lot more even though it seems like they shouldn’t.
February 17th, 2009 at 7:54 pm
Hey Erin - Our winter CSA was really fun, we got lots of winter squash, potatoes, turnips, and they had spinach and kale that they grew in a green house. We have been really into organic dairy, eggs, and meat as well. We found a really awesome teeny grocery store type of thing near us that sells meat. But we’ve also gotten some from our CSA partners too. We will make a post about it soon and tell you more about it.
February 18th, 2009 at 4:53 pm
Man, If I had only seen this earlier, I would have bought some carrots this evening at the farmers market! I did buy some yummy produce though, including broccoli, leeks, grape tomatoes, red onions, snow peas, cilantro, new potatoes, and lemons. I think I might try to make some more butternut squash soup (from a recipe on cooking light). It was so delish and mainly was just leeks, buttsnutts and potatoes. We have also been getting this yummy local bread that goes so well with the soup. Also, here is the number one reason to live in Florida: fresh strawberries in February!!
Also Erin, it does seem counter-intuitive that local, grass raised meat and local produce is so much more expensive than the crap you buy in the grocery store: its called horrible farm subsidies. The government pumps insane amounts of money into industrial farming so people can continue to grow insane amounts of corn (most of which is genetically modified strains with very little nutritional content) that goes to feed cattle, and goes into the production of ethanol, and best of all, the production of high fructose corn syrup. That’s why a bag of doritos is so much cheaper than an ear of summer corn. Its really insane and I was so sad that Obama seems to be going with status quo when it comes to the Dept of Agriculture. We desperately need to change the way we fund food production in order to solve issues of social justice (where everyone can afford healthy fruits and vegetables) and especially environmental problems. Industrial Ag is so fossil fuel intensive.
Sorry this is so long, read The Omnivore’s Dilemma, that’s where I’m getting it all from.
February 18th, 2009 at 5:31 pm
Sorry Amy, I am so jealous of your farmer’s market!!! Can we please go when i’m there and then we’ll cook. Also can you send me the butternut squash recipe? That sounds delish, I’ve tried a couple of butternut squash soup recipes before and never gotten them to turn out very good.
Also, thanks for stealing a post from us with your comment. Just kidding, but we will probably make a similar post soon, maybe i’ll just copy and paste your comment
Anyway I agree, I think everyone should read Omnivore’s Dilemma.
February 18th, 2009 at 7:50 pm
I tried to leave a message before, but for some reason it didn’t work! Anyway, I really want to try this recipe. We always want to eat more veggies, but when we buy fresh veggies, it seems like we never eat them fast enough because I’m not very good with being creative while cooking veggies. Plus, there are tons of veggies out there that I have no idea how to cook! I’m looking into the CSAs around Tulsa for the upcoming season, so hopefully that will help.
February 18th, 2009 at 7:54 pm
Also, I’m happy I’m going to be in Florida while you guys cook delish food. I’ll take care of Jakey while you cook!