I
always wanted to make my own Minestrone
and today I got my chance. It’s not the kind of soup I’d find on a menu too
often; maybe restaurants think it’s too ‘common’ and not posh enough. I think the only time I think
I’ve actually had it has been out of a can courtesy of Heinz or M&S. I
always love those wee spaghetti bits. Considering that, you’d think I’d have
made a vegetarian version but, no, I decided to stick to Rachel’s recipe and I’ll
do a vegetarian version next time. There was quite a lot of ingredients in this
recipe and quite a bit of preparation so let’s get down to it…
I
started off by adding olive oil to a large saucepan and, once it was hot, I added
in diced bacon to fry off for about 4 minutes. I then added in more olive oil
before throwing in the diced onion and chopped garlic and adding salt and
pepper. The onion had to soften but not brown for about 8 minutes before adding
chopped tomato, red wine and chicken stock. A pinch of sugar was also required
to help the tomatoes. Once it came up to the boil, I let it simmer and
added a tin of cannellini beans and diced carrot. They simmered for 15 minutes
before adding diced potato which then cooked for another 10 minutes. I seasoned
the soup at that point again and added celery, cabbage and spaghetti. Honestly,
at one point, I thought I was going to have to wear a pair of safety goggles as
the bits of spaghetti kept hitting me in the eyes! Once the celery et al. had
simmered for another 10 minutes, I added in fresh thyme and chopped parsley. The
recipe said to add parmesan but I didn’t use it this time round. I served the minestrone as
a small starter for Dear Husband and friend.
Dear
Husband said it was very, very nice and gave it 9 marks out of 10 while his
friend gave it full marks and said he’d have it again! I know the minestrone
would be better as a lunch recipe but as a ‘storm’ had been forecast for today, I had
picked that recipe in its honour. Little did I know that our ‘storm’ would turn
out to be the loveliest summer breeze in the lovely sunshine. Ok, so we had a
bit of rain late on in the day but that was it. I’ve seen worse.
What
I would say about this recipe is – don’t be in a hurry to make it although I was
really glad I did. It takes quite a bit of time to prepare – it probably took
me closer to half an hour rather than the 20 minutes on the recipe but, then
again, I was tending to two babies in between. The soup also takes quite a
while to cook (almost an hour) so it’s not a dish that can be made on the hop.
Despite all that, I would highly recommend this recipe considering the high
score it got and also because of all the lovely vegetables it has in it. It
definitely is an easy recipe to prepare and I know that it will make the
perfect Saturday lunch as we head into winter. And the reason I'm thinking about winter is because I'm sitting here listening to the wind howling outside. Sorry people, I hate to be the one to tell you but summer
is over. Boo. Maybe next year we will get the summer we long for each
and every year. Just maybe…
No comments:
Post a Comment