With Fall Comes Soup Season: My Hearty (Not Your Gramma's) Minestrone Soup Recipe With A Flavor Buster

 

My Recipe for A Hearty 
Minestrone Soup
With Ingredients Shopped Straight From The 
Farm Stands in the Hamptons

This Minestrone is an amalgamation of the classic Italian favorite but with my own flavor twists. I love how hearty a minestrone soup is with chunks of potato, zucchini and little bites of pasta (I use short tubes called Ditalini).  It starts as a chicken broth/tomato base and finished off nicely with freshly grated parmigiana cheese then topped with garlic toast, well, it’s perfection on a cold Fall evening sitting by a roaring fire! The flavor buster is the first ingredient- I start with a sautee of chopped pancetta and that ramps up this otherwise all vegetable soup.  Today, we whipped it up after visiting the local Farm Stands  (Round Swamp Farm and Balsam Farms). This kicks-off soup season, and making soup is an excuse to use all the locally grown bounties. Oh, and don't forget to check out my Minestrone Soup Tiktok

Happy Nesting

XO Tamara

Balsam Farm Stand in Amagansett

 

WHAT YOU'll NEED
-8 cups homemade chicken broth
(make it ahead of time with a chicken thighs, leaks, onion, carrots celery and garlic simmering for 2 hours) or you can buy a carton store-bought
-1 cup chopped carrots
-1 cup chopped celery
1 large onion chopped
1 cup chopped green zucchini
1 large potato chopped
1 packet of frozen cut spinach
5 cloves chopped garlic
1 container of cherry tomatoes pre-roasted in the oven till golden (with olive oil on top) or if not in-season, 1 large can 28 ounces of crushed tomatoes
couple of pinches of fresh or dried herbs–
oregano, thyme, parsley, black pepper, kosher salt
1⁄4 cup white wine (I used Pinot Grigio)
1⁄4 cup chopped pancetta
1 cup of Ditalini pasta cooked 

(+note-cooked, then drained and separate from the soup, with a dollop of butter so it doesnt stick- until serving then put a ¼ cup pasta in the bowl and add hot soup- otherwise, 

the pasta will soak up all the broth in your pot of soup)
Sliced, toasted garlic toast
generous amount of freshly grated Parmigiana cheese for garnish on top of the bowl of soup

SOUP–sautee the pancetta till it’s light gold, then add the onion.  Stir for five minutes. Add all the vegetables (except the spinach). Stir on medium heat until it starts to soften, 5 minutes. Add garlic. Stir till golden but not dark brown. Add tomato, chicken broth and white wine to vegetables. After the broth starts to reduce (10 minutes) and thicken, add the spinach.

PASTA–in a separate pan, boil water and cook 1 cup of the pasta.
cook and drain the pasta and add a touch of butter and keep it separate till serving (because the pasta if added to the soup will take all the broth)
cook and drain the pasta and add a touch of butter and keep it separate till serving (because the pasta if added to the soup will take all the broth)

GARLIC TOAST-start with a good baguette sliced in a thick slice and toast in a pan in a butter and sliced garlic in the pan. Brown on both sides.
Serve the soup in deep bowls adding a generous amount of the pasta, grated cheese on top then the garlic toast. 

Truth be told I took this photograph- huge wheels of Parmigiana while in Parma, Italy (the official home for this amazing cheese)