Minestrone

Ingredients:

2 stalks celery, chopped
2 carrots, chopped
1 onion, chopped
1 can tomato paste
2 tbs. olive oil
fresh garlic cloves, minced
8 cups broth (or water and bouillon)
1 can kidney beans (or white beans, or limas, or...)
fresh chopped basil and oregano
macaroni noodles, cooked

Instructions:

Heat oil in soup pot over medium heat. Sauté celery, carrots and onions in oil until golden. add tomato paste, garlic, beans and broth. Add basil, oregano, salt and pepper to taste. Simmer 20 minutes. Meanwhile, boil macaroni noodles. Drain and set to the side.

When you serve the soup, you add noodles to the bowl and then ladle soup on top. Adding the noodles to the pot will cause them to over cook and become mushy.

Also, this recipe is a basic starting point for your minestrone. Be creative! Mine today included zucchini, summer squash and white beans. You can add all sorts of things, greens like kale, spinach, mustard. Green beans, All sorts of things!

Veggie Skettie Sauce

Ingredients

2 - cans (or one big one) of crushed tomatoes
2 - 8 oz. cans tomato sauce
1 - can tomato paste
2 - large carrots
1 - onion
1 - bell pepper
3 - cloves garlic
basil, oregano, salt and pepper to taste
2 - tbs. olive oil

Directions

Dice onion, bell pepper, carrots and garlic. Heat olive oil in a pan over medium heat. Sauté onions, bell pepper and carrot until tender. Add garlic and sauté a minute more. Add tomatoes, tomato sauce and paste. Add salt, pepper, basil and oregano to taste. cover and simmer at least 20 minutes. The longer the better. This recipe makes enough sauce to mix with 1lb. of pasta.

*Tip: This will be a chunky sauce. If you're trying to fool kids into eating veggies I'd recommend blending it in a blender (or using a stick blender) to break up the chunks.