Garden Minestrone A Complete Dinner In Just One Bowl

If your backyard vegetable garden is overflowing, turn the summer bounty into a thick, hearty Garden Minestrone. This low-fat, meatless soup is a vegetable lover’s delight, thick with seasonal produce, pasta and beans.

It’s made with fresh produce that is plentiful during the late summer months: green beans, tomatoes, cabbage, carrots and onions. The vegetables simmer together until they form a thick, nutritious broth.

In the last minutes of cooking, you add wine, cooked pasta, canned cannellini beans and chopped zucchini and red-skinned potatoes. No oil or fat is added during cooking.

Garden Minestrone is chunky enough to eat with a fork and filling enough to be a complete meal. If you wish, you can top each serving with 2 tablespoons of grated Parmesan cheese.

Garden Minestrone

8 cups water

2 cups chopped onion (about 1 large onion)

1-1/4 cups chopped carrots (about 2 medium carrots)

1 cup chopped celery

2 cups chopped green cabbage or savoy cabbage

4 cloves garlic, chopped or crushed through a press

1 cup green beans, ends trimmed and cut into 1-inch lengths

1 cup diced, seeded tomatoes

2-1/4 teaspoons salt

1 teaspoon dried basil leaves

1 teaspoon dried parsley leaves

1/4 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper

2 bay leaves

1/2 cup uncooked small elbow macaroni

1 tablespoon balsamic vinegar

1/2 cup dry white wine or dry vermouth

1 cup diced fresh zucchini

1 cup diced red potatoes

1 (15-ounce) can cannellini beans or Great Northern beans

Grated Parmesan cheese (optional)

In a large kettle, bring the water to a boil. Add the onion, carrot, celery, cabbage, garlic, green beans, tomatoes, salt, basil, parsley, black pepper and bay leaves. Reduce heat to medium-low, and simmer for 45 minutes.

While the soup is cooking, bring a small saucepan of water to a boil. Boil the macaroni for the minimum cooking time according to the package directions. Drain the macaroni and add it to the soup.

Add the balsamic vinegar, dry white wine or vermouth, zucchini, red potatoes and cannellini beans. Simmer for another 15 to 20 minutes. Serve hot. Top with grated Parmesan cheese if desired.

Yield: 8 servings.

Nutrition information per serving: 184 calories, 0.8 grams fat (4 percent fat calories), 8 grams protein, 36 grams carbohydrate, no cholesterol, 278 milligrams sodium.

Nutrition information per serving, including 2 tablespoons grated Parmesan cheese: 241 calories, 4.5 grams fat (17 percent fat calories), 12.8 grams protein, 37 grams carbohydrate, 9 milligrams cholesterol, 464 milligrams sodium.

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