Beef Minestrone Soup

Soup.  Buttered saltines.  My little panda bear Chinese soup spoon.  My Care Bears TV tray.

During my childhood, these were the things that made my lunch on sick days.  Sometimes it was just lunch on a cold day.  Sometimes it was just lunch when mom wasn't feeling up for making a whole big deal out of lunch.

I don't know how she did it.  She managed to butter (okay, it was probably more like Imperial margarine spread) those saltine crackers and splay them out so that only one side of the cracker would be sticky but not too sticky to have all of the crackers stick together.  That sort of mom-prepared-meal-perfection is still endearing when I think back about it.

Progresso Beef Minestrone soup was my favorite "go to" canned soup when I was a kid.  It had all of the beans most kids wrinkle their nose at - lima beans, kidney beans, garbanzo beans, cannellini beans, and peas.  I loved them all!

Then Progresso switched to only doing the minestrone soup without beef.  I was so sad!  But, I put on my big girl panties and learned to love the soup without beef.  Then at least a decade ago, they completely changed the recipe altogether.  They switched up the broth and the pasta.  They switched from a long ditalini pasta shape to a short penne shape.  *In my best sad little girl voice* It was not the same.

I've had lots of this new recipe of minestrone soup over the years, and I would long for the old recipe every time I had it.  Then one day I decided I should make some homemade minestrone soup for myself!  This is what I came up with.  Enjoy!

Special note: it can be made in a crock pot, though it will take a bit longer.  Just make sure you brown the beef and onions in a small covered skillet first.  You can experiment with it, but I recommend cooking the ditalini pasta for the last 20 minutes, if not longer, in the crock pot.  It can also stay on low simmer for much longer than an hour.  The longer it stays on simmer, the more the flavors will bloom.  I highly recommend an enameled Le Creuset Dutch oven to make this recipe.  Le Creuset pots are great in that they only need to run on very low amounts of heat to get the job done consistently.  They are *not* cheap, but one will last you a lifetime, and I have never had problems with cleanup.  It's pretty difficult to burn things in an Le Creuset pot if you maintain a low temperature.

Larena's Beef Minestrone Soup

Ingredients

·        1 lb of stew meat (beef)

·        Salt (to taste)

·        Pepper (to taste)

·        2 tbsp. of olive oil or coconut oil

·        1 small onion, diced

·        ~6 cups of vegetable broth (or chicken broth), or ~2 14.5 oz cans to start, 1 extra can after pasta is added

·        3 tbsp. of tomato paste

·        1 ½ tsp. Herbs de Provence

·        ½ tsp. basil

·        ½ tsp. oregano

·        2 bay leaves

·        1 cup of green beans, ends snapped off and pod snapped in half (fresh, not canned)

·        2 cups of cannellini beans (soaked overnight, or frozen or canned - drained)

·        1 cup of garbanzo beans (soaked overnight, or frozen or canned - drained)

·        1 cup of red kidney beans (soaked overnight, or frozen or canned - drained)

·        1 cup of lima beans (soaked overnight, or frozen or canned - drained)

·        2 cups of diced fresh Roma (Italian plum) tomatoes, or canned

·        2 medium sized carrots, peeled and sliced, large discs cut in half (yields ~1 cup)

·        2 large stalks celery, diced
·        1 small russet potato, peeled and cut into ½ inch cubes (approximately 1 cup)

·        a pinch of dried red pepper flakes

·        1 tbsp. of lemon juice

·        2 cloves of garlic, chopped or crushed

·        ½ - ¾ cup dried ditalini pasta or other small pasta (macaroni, shells, etc)

        Optional ingredients: 
·        2 tsp. of Salt Grass spice (no need to add additional salt/pepper aside from seasoning the beef if doing this step)
·        ½ tsp. cayenne

Method

1.    Pat the stew meat dry with paper towels, and season the beef with salt and pepper according to your personal taste.

2.    Using an (enameled, preferably) cast iron Dutch oven, put the stew meat and onions on low-medium heat. Cover and brown the stew meat in the oil and onions, stirring occasionally.  This will take approximately 45 minutes to an hour on low-medium heat.  The onions should be “sweated” and soft and translucent, and the beef should be nice and brown all around the outside.

3.    Combine all the remaining ingredients in a large stock pot or saucepan (except for the pasta), mix well, and simmer for about 2 hours. 

4.    Add the ditalini pasta, stir and simmer for another 20 minutes.  If the soup doesn’t have enough broth for your taste, add additional soup stock or water if you are out of soup stock. 

5.    Remove the bay leaves, and enjoy! This soup can be kept warm if covered and the heat is reduced to an extremely low level.  It can also be frozen or refrigerated for a second round.


For the nutritional values of this recipe, you can log it through the My Fitness Pal application.  Just search for "Larena's Beef Minestrone Soup."  Disclaimer: this nutritional value calculation is just an estimation.
http://www.myfitnesspal.com/recipe/view/41572843