Sunday Cooking Part 1: Minestrone Soup

Sunday is my day to cook dinner.  Most other days, my boyfriend does the honors because of work schedule of course.  With dragonboat season being on break right now and work calming down a bit, I’ve had time to research and make a decent meal from scratch.  After talking about it for a while, I finally cracked down and made Minestrone Soup.

I’ve never made soup before.  The closest thing to soup I’ve ever made was simmering chinese vegetables and then it would turn into a nice little soup once you put in ginger.  So this was fun but had so much preparation.  I think I spent 30 minutes just chopping all the ingredients and vegetables, etc.  Other than that, it was pretty easy to do.

I found this recipe in a newsletter from my gym (that I used to go to).  I don’t understand why they still have me on the list, but at least its healthy.  It was originally a Turkey Minestrone Soup but my boyfriend and I both prefer Vegetable Minestrone Soup. So as usual, I’ll post the actual recipe and then show the modifications I had done.  I have to translate from a French recipe so if you see any measurement errors, please inform me.

Turkey Minestrone Soup

Makes 8 servings

Ingredients:

1 tablespoon olive oil

2 cloves of garlic, minced

1 big onion, diced

2 medium carrots, diced

8 branches of celery, cut in pieces

8 cups (2L) of no-fat chicken broth

3 1/2 cups (871 mL) canned conserved tomatoes, diced

2 cups (500mL) cooked turkey, in cubes

2 2/1 cups (500mL) canned white beans, drained and rinsed

2 cups cooked macaroni (preferably whole wheat)

1 teaspoon dried basil

Salt

Pepper

2 cups spinach, chopped coarsely

Directions:

1) In a big pan, fry garlic and onions in oil for 3 minutes on high heat.  Add the vegetables (carrots and celery), broth, tomatoes, and basil and bring it to a boil.

2) Reduce the temperature and let simmer for 30 minutes or until vegetables are tender.

3) Add in the turkey, the beans, macaroni and the spinach and let it cook for around 5 minutes.  Season with salt and pepper and serve.

Here’s what I did: I made Vegetable Minestrone.  I didn’t use turkey instead I made another dish which I will post up tomorrow.  I didn’t add macaroni, spinach or basil.  No macaroni because my boyfriend didn’t want it and well, I just forgot to buy spinach altogether (and the basil too).  Also, I replaced the white beans with green ones and I bought them fresh instead of canned.  That didn’t affect the taste in the end.  Believe me on that.  It had plenty of taste as is.  Also, in my terms, I always believed that beans are considered vegetables so I just added it along with the carrots and celery.  I don’t think it made too much difference.

In the end, it turned out really good.  The taste was perfect, there was lots of veggies, everything was balanced, not too sour either.  I think we’ll be exploring more soups.  Meanwhile, Part 2 is coming up tomorrow!