Soup for you? Yes? No?: Fresh Minestrone

This week I actually have two posts in one. Call it free soup, Call it a soup double dip. Call it whatever you want. Both recipes also directly relate to my epic cheapness and desire to cook with locally grown ingredients.

First up in our soup double header is chicken broth. Brian and I got back from San Fran pretty late on Sunday night last week and had no time/energy to bother with thinking about dinner for the entire week. Enter a nice rotisserie chicken complements of my local Kroger and I had the beginnings of home made chicken broth. For this you will need: one chicken carcass, one onion, three stalks of celery, two carrots, five cloves of garlic, a sprig of rosemary, salt and pepper to taste, water and a lot of free time.

First, coarsely chop the onion, carrots and celery, and peel the garlic cloves. Throw these the whole rosemary sprig and chicken pieces into a big soup pot. If you have one with a pasta strainer insert, it's a good idea to use it.

Add water to cover everything and put it over a medium-high heat. Bring it to a boil then reduce heat to low to simmer. Now's a good time to also throw in some salt and pepper. Simmer for 2-4 hours. Yes, hours.

After a few hours your house will officially smell like Lipton Landing and I can't guarantee that you won't also smell like soup. Give the broth a taste. It should be pretty bland, and that's just fine. Remove the strainer insert with its fully water logged veggies and chicken bones from the stock pot. Let the broth cool for about 45 minutes and throw everything else away.

I got about 18 cups of broth out of this. I know that my soups usually take 6 cups of broth, so I ladled 6 cups each into three gallon freezer bags, gently placed two in the freezer for later and kept one out for the next match-up in our double header, some fresh minestrone.

Minestrone is not my best soup. I often make it because it's easy and a good pantry/veggie drawer cleaner, but I must miss something when making it. It's usually a winter soup for me, so I thought I'd give it a try with some fresh from the farm veggies and see if that was the missing link in making the soup delicious. Brian and I also finally had time to check out the Sandy Springs Farmer's Market where I found all the tomatoes, beans and potatoes that I used in this soup. All are organic and were purchased from a very nice young man who likes to give people deals on their purchases. Everything I bought should have been about $18 and he gave it to me for $12 (the epic cheapness was so happy). I'll likely juxtapose this receipe with a frozen or canned minestrone sometime in winter for a little battle of the minestrones if you will. Until then, here's some Fresh Minestrone.

For this gem you'll need: 1 onion, 2 carrots, 2 stalks of celery, 4 cloves of garlic, 1 sprig of rosemary, 2 serrano peppers (if you're into spicy), 3-4 small potatoes, 8-10 medium tomatoes, 1 zucchini, a bunch of beans (I went with these delightful purple ones), 1 can of kidney beans, 6 cups of broth, and 1 cup of small pasta. You'll also need some not pictured items to taste, additionally I threw in: one sprig of fresh oregano, 2 dried bay leaves, some dried oregano, salt, pepper and crushed red pepper flakes. Yes, there are many ingredients. Yes, you will be spending some serious time chopping them up. Lucky for you, it's probaby over 90 degrees outside and it's not like you were going to go outside and do something so just hunker down in the kitchen with your favorite knife and get going.

Start by mincing the garlic, serrano peppers and rosemary. These serrano peppers came from a very fertile plant in my garden so I felt the need to use them to keep with the farm/garden fresh aspect of this soup. Feel free to leave them out. Also, dice the onion, celery and carrot.

Next, dice the potatoes.

Then, coarsely chop the tomatoes, keeping the seeds. I had a few pretty heirloom tomatoes to work with so seeds weren't really a problem. Please don't judge my horrible knife skills. It's a wonder I have finger tips.

Now, the beans. I got very excited when I saw these beans, mostly because I ♥ purple things and had never seen purple beans before (so I grew up sheltered, my Grandpee had a huge garden in RI, but the only beans it in were green). These beans were a little tough and a little bitter, but they are oh so pretty. Trim the ends of the beans and cut into 1/4 inch or so lengths.

Lastly, the zucchini. Simple dice this baby up like the rest of the diced veggies.

Now that you've devoted probably at least 30 minutes of your day to chopping veggies, get to cooking. Heat a large pot over medium heat and add some olive oil or other fat. Once it's hot, throw in the garlic, serrano peppers, onions, celery, carrots and rosemary. Cook for about 5 minutes.

Then, add the potatoes. Cooking for another 3 minutes.

Next in is the zucchini. Cook for another 3 minutes.

Now add the tomatoes. Also throw in the chicken broth and kidney beans. Stir it all up, bring to a boil, then lower heat to a simmer. Let it simmer for about 10 minutes and give it a taste. That's when I added some fresh oregano, dried oregno, dried bay leaves, salt (lots of it because the homemade broth hardly had any salt in it), pepper and crushed red pepper.

I let my soup simmer for an unnecessarily long amount of time (over an hour) because I went to the gym and wanted to eat it for lunch upon returning. I do not suggest leaving a hot pot of soup on your stove while going to the gym, unless you have someone at home to watch the soup just in case (which I did). Regardless of my ridiculous simmer time, the soup should simmer for at least 30 minutes. Again, give it a taste to see if it needs anything. If all systems are a go, throw in the beans.

Next, toss in the pasta. I used cute little shells. Give the whole thing a stir, increase the heat a bit and cook for about 10 minutes or until the pasta are done. Before serving, be sure to fish out the oregano sprig and bay leaves.