What goes in your Minestrone Soup?

[PinkPetalPolygon]

I was wondering what your Minestrone looks like this time of year.

I recently learned what minestrone even was when I made a soup out of everything in my garden because I HAD to. It was kind of funny... I didn't really know the definition of minestrone until I made that soup and thought to myself, "that tastes like minestrone"... then I looked up the recipe for minestrone and it suggested that minestrone was usually a soup made to use what you already had fresh that needed to be used.

Honestly, I made minestrone again because my zucchinis & Armenian cucumbers have gotten ... numerous!!! But it is becoming my favorite soup. I snarfed the two bowls I just had so quickly.

My minestrone had 3 blenders full of tomatoes & sweet gypsy peppers, 3 cutting boards full of chopped tomatoes (AKA every tomato that needed to go in went in, heheh)

I chopped an onion (the only thing not from the garden besides the salt) & I diced a couple more sweet peppers into tiny chunks

I cooked that for a few hours on low and the added diced hunks of green zucchini, golden zucchini, & Armenian cucumbers & I just simmered that until they were tender but not mushy.

(I have fallen in love with the cooked texture of Armenian cucumber!)

I added herbs like 15 minutes before the end of cooking: chives, oregano, marjoram, basil, rosemary, & parsley.

The tomatoes and peppers were sooooo sweet. It kinda felt like I was eating a candy soup. I squeezed some fresh lemon juice over mine because I love citrus.

What's in your Minestrone!?

[applestar]

I'm drooooling over here.....

[rainbowgardener]

Minestrone is a soup that typically has beans, greens (like kale), and a bit of pasta in it, with whatever veggies are on hand. And plenty of garlic, being Italian!!

I wouldn't call yours minestrone, but that doesn't mean it wasn't delicious!

My way of cooking almost anything is to saute the onions and garlic in olive oil until the onions are getting soft and translucent and then add all the herbs. They release their flavor better in oil than in water. ( I always say I can saute the onions and garlic and THEN decide what I'm cooking! ) After the herbs are fragrant, add the veggies in order of how much cooking they need. Add the water/ soup stock/ wine/ liquid last. You can always add a little extra herbs at the end too.

Meat based soups have a built in richness. I'm a vegetarian. I think the foundation of great vegetarian soups is great soup stock. My secret is that when I am cooking, I take all the scraps, onion peels, potato peels, garlic ends, carrot peels, herb stems, etc etc, and throw them in a pot with water to cover and simmer them for half hour to an hour. (I call it garbage soup!) After that I strain the scraps out and compost them (having been simmered, they are now ready to break down quickly in the compost pile). And put the stock in a jar in the fridge. If I haven't used it by the next time I am cooking, I put the new scraps in a pot with the previous soup stock, add some extra water and simmer it down again. By the time you have done that a few times, you have a really rich wonderful stock that smells so good while it is simmering, it makes you want to just drink it! Then use that instead of water in your soup and you will have great vegetarian soups. You can also use it instead of water to cook your rice, etc.