Wednesday, March 23, 2011

Spring vegetable minestrone

It's been way too long since I've posted on Kevin Eats. I've made some wonderful meals and created some great new recipes over the past few months, I promise. My latest soup - spring vegetable minestrone - has motivated me to write another entry. I hope this re-ignites my desire to share what is happening in our kitchen more often.

I've made a lot of different soups and I'm very proud of my Italian heritage, so I'm kind of surprised that I had never tackled minestrone before today. To be honest, I usually choose "the other" soup on the menu when minestrone is offered which is why I'm very pleased with the one I made. It was extraordinary.

As always, I used my Dutch oven and sauteed onions and garlic with extra virgin olive oil. I added paprika (the key to the minestrone flavor), salt and pepper. Once the onions were translucent, I incorporated tomato paste followed by beef broth. While the soup was cooking, I diced a yellow squash, sugar snap peas, spinach, tomatoes and added it to the soup with a can of cannellini beans. I also used a lot of garlic and basil seasoning.

I constantly tasted the soup as it was cooking and added seasoning until it was just right. When served, it was topped with grated Parmesan cheese. Simply. Wonderful.

Ingredients:
1 onion
3 cloves garlic
4 tsp paprika
1 can tomato paste
1 box Trader Joe's Organic Beef Broth
1 yellow squash
4 oz. sugar snap peas, trimmed
1 tomato
2 oz. spinach
1 can Progresso cannellini beans
salt, pepper, garlic and basil seasoning to taste