Wednesday, January 21, 2009

Minestrone Soup

by Dave Washburn

This is a recipe that we got from one of Karen's co-workers years ago- don't know it's origins but it is a really good solid soup- simple, thick, rich and you can feed a lot of people. Serve with garlic bread and a good salad.

1 lb. Italian sausage
olive oil
2-3 cloves garlic minced
1 medium onion chopped
1 C sliced carrots
1 t dried basil
2 small zucchini sliced
1 large can tomatoes undrained
2 cans beef broth or 2 cups water and 1 tbs Penzeys beef base
2 C finely shredded cabbage
1 small can great northern beans undrained

Partially freeze the sausage- I use 3 links of sweet and 2 links of hot- slice with a serrated knife in to bite size pieces.
Brown the sausage in the olive oil in your favorite pot.
Add the carrot, onion, garlic and basil- cook for five minutes.
Add the zucchini, tomatoes(undrained) (I usually squish them up at this point) cabbage and stock. Bring to a boil, reduce heat and simmer covered for 1 hour.
Add the beans undrained and cook for another 30 minutes.
Salt and pepper to taste.
Serve in large bowls and stuff madly into your pie hole.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

I made this today you're right: thick and flavorful. I didn't have hot Italian sausage so I added Penzey's Black & Red pepper (awesome stuff). I used my owned canned tomatoes--never buy 'em in the store--and this jar had yellow, red, and orange heirlooms. Tasty. I also don't have any dried basil because I gave all of my garden dried basil to my brothers for Christmas! So I threw in four basil ice cubes (last fall, I chopped basil and froze with a bit of water in ice cube trays, then when frozen I put them in a freezer bag).

Anonymous said...

I forgot to mentioned that I cheated with freezing the sausage. I left them in the car for 2 hours after coming home from the grocery store. Today's high was 13 degrees so they were nicely frozen!