Summer Minestrone

We've made our favorite winter minstrone soup many times, but now that warmer weather has arrived, we search for a more summer-vegetable-inspired recipe and find summer minstrone with fresh basil in the New York Times food collection.  It looks good and we make it.

First, a period of chopping onion, carrots, celery, garlic, tomatoes turnip, and zucchini.

Chopped

We heat olive oil in a Dutch oven, add the onion, carrots, and celery, and cook, stirring until tender.  We then add the garlic, stir together for about a minute, followed by the chopped tomatoes, and continue cooking until the tomatoes have cooked down and smell fragrant.

Starting the cooking

We add two quarts of stock and the chopped turnip and zucchini, along with a bouquet garni of Parmesan rind, bay leaf, parsley, and thyme, all wrapped and tied in cheesecloth.  We simmer this for about 45 minutes.

Add the turnip and zucchini

We remove the bouquet garni and add a can of cannellini beans, drained and  rinsed, and a soup pasta (we use broken spaghetti this time, next time we'll try penne or mezzi rigatoni).  We cook until the pasta is al dente, then add cooked green beans cut into 1-inch lengths.

Add beans and pasta

At the end, we serve with sliced basil leaves and a sprinkling of Parmesan cheese, accompanied by a small salad of arugula dressed with olive oil, salt, and pepper, buratta, tomato jam, and prosciutto, topped with a drizzle of balsamic vinegar.

Salad

Dinner is served

Another great meal!