Bean and Pasta Soup

I'm usually just not a soup kind of gal. But the first recipe I made during my "week as a vegetarian" was soup... and it was absolutely perfect.

I made this soup on a cold, rainy Sunday. It's not like I had anything else to do anyway in that unfortunate weather.

Disclaimer: Don't let the ingredients intimidate you,

this recipe is super easy and hard to mess up.

Ingredients:

1 onion

5 carrots

4 celery sticks, leafy greens reserved

1 bunch of mustard greens

4-5 tbsp olive oil

1 can chickpeas, drained and rinsed

1 can great northern or cannellini beans, drained and rinsed

1 can diced tomatoes, drained and rinsed

1/2 cup white wine

6 cups vegetable stock

1 sprig fresh rosemary

2 sprigs fresh thyme

3 bay leaves

1/2 tsp cayenne pepper

1/2 lb orecchiette pasta

salt and pepper

What to do:

Chop up onion, carrots and celery into similar sized, small pieces. In a large pot, heat olive oil over medium heat and add in chopped veggies. Season with salt, pepper, and cayenne pepper. Cook until beginning to soften, about 4 or 5 minutes, then add white wine.

Allow white wine to reduce slightly, about 2 minutes, then add beans, stock, rosemary, thyme and bay leaf. Simmer 15 to 20 minutes.

Add tomatoes, pasta and mustard greens to the pot and stir. Cook over medium heat. When pasta is ready, mix in chopped celery greens.

When ready to serve, remove bay leaves, thyme and rosemary sprigs from pot. Top with grated parmesan cheese (this is the most important part!)

It's funny because the week after Thanksgiving I cooked a very similar recipe using all of the leftover turkey, but this one turned out so much better. I promise, you won't miss the meat at all!

Sarah