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.
Picture Perfect Cooking 