Guest Post from Willie and Henrietta

Well, when cooking on a budget we generally turn to soup. Soups have long been the BFF of country food. It seems every great cuisine has food which was invented by an industrious farmer’s wife looking to get as much use out of her ingredients as possible. Being the grandchildren of farmer’s we feel this type of cooking is in our bones!
A wonderful soup which is both inexpensive and healthy is Minestrone.
What we love about this soup is that you can really throw in any number of vegetables you have on hand or get on super sale. So please take this recipe as a guide not as map.
We had on hand cabbage (which truth be told really should be a mainstay in this soup for two reasons- it’s so inexpensive and it’s packed with vitamins.), onions, zucchini, and red pepper.
Here was our list of ingredients:
14 oz Canned Tomatoes
1/3 c. Whole Wheat Pasta
2 cans Cannellini Beans (you can use Great Northern Beans if you can’t find Cannellini and you can always used dry we were taking a short cut)
1 tbsp. Chicken Bouillon add more to taste after you’ve cooked- it gets really salty fast!
6 c. Water
½ head cabbage shredded
2 Zucchini chopped
3 cloves Garlic
1 Red Pepper Chopped
1 onion chopped
1 tbsp. Italian Seasoning
¼ tsp. red pepper flakes
1. Heat 2 tbsp. Olive Oil in pan and add onions. Throw a little salt in there to sweat the onions. After a couple of minutes add the garlic. Once onions become translucent add shredded cabbage and pepper.
2. When the vegetables have started to cook down. Chop half of the tomatoes and sauté them with the rest of the vegetable. Continue to cook until vegetables have cooked down to half their volume.
3. Add 2 c. of water, bouillon, seasonings, pepper, and tomato liquid (reserve the rest of the tomatoes for now)
4. If you have a food processor, blender, or immersion blender, coarsely pulse puree the soup mixture. We still want to see some of the vegetables.
5. To the puree add: beans, rest of the tomatoes, and Zucchini. Cook until zucchini is soft. Add cooked pasta. Season to taste.
6. If you have it serve with a little Parmesan cheese on top and a slice of garlic bread.
The fun part of simple cooking is that really anything goes: you could sauté onion with bacon for more fat and flavor. You could throw in carrots and celery or add chicken. Whatever your fancy!
We hope you enjoy this as much as we enjoyed coming up with it! In the words of our great inspiration Julia Child --Bon Appetit!