Picture Perfect Cooking

This recipe has a funny story behind it.  My mother-in-law, J,  had successful open heart surgery in July and was unfortunately subjected to hospital food for a couple of weeks. The one meal she actually enjoyed was a vegetable soup and she asked the dietary worker what it was.  I then asked J what it was so I could try to duplicate it for her and she said the worker told her it was “minstrun”.  What?  I wracked my brain for hours trying to figure out what it was and it finally hit me that it was MINESTRONE and we just had a little communication/pronunciation problem.  We all had a good laugh out of it and I went on the hunt for a recipe to try.

I found this Elie Krieger recipe on the Food Network’s website and used that as my starting point.  This is a fairly simple and really healthy dinner idea and the taste was great!

2 tbsp. extra-virgin olive oil

1 cup diced onion

2 stalks celery, diced

1 large carrot, diced

1 1/2 cups cut green beans

Freshly ground black pepper

2 tsp. Italian season

1 tsp. minced garlic

1 28-ounce can no-salt-added diced tomatoes (I used some home frozen diced tomatoes.) 
1 14-ounce can tomato sauce
6 cups low-sodium vegetable broth
1 15-ounce can low-sodium kidney beans, drained and rinsed
1 cup rotini pasta 

Heat the olive oil in a large pot over medium-high heat. Add the onion and cook until translucent, about 4 minutes. 

Add the celery and carrot and cook until they begin to soften, about 5 minutes. Stir in the green beans, Italian seasoning, minced garlic and black pepper; cook 3 more minutes.

Add the diced tomatoes, tomato sauce and the vegetable broth to the pot and bring to a boil. Reduce the heat to medium low and simmer 10 minutes. Stir in the kidney beans and pasta and cook until the pasta and vegetables are tender, about 10 minutes.