Minestrone 💚💚💚

Funny story...

This minestrone soup is based on the recipe shared by @saucypotatomama. It's straightforward and super awesome. I made short work of the beans by cooking them in a crock pot. 8oz dry beans + 3½ cups water on high for several hours... there, now you know my secret bean recipe. I used a relative of the cranberry bean.. Borlotto Magnifico from @rancho_gordo.

Whoever names their beans is really great at it. I can picture a guidance counselor years ago saying to them: your scores in creativity, horticulture, and modern nomenclature are off the charts, have you considered a career in the emerging field of bean naming?

Anyway, I added the cooked beans to a dutch oven with softened veggies, tomatoes, tomato paste, and herbs. These no-salt-added canned diced tomatoes are such BIG chunks. They wouldn't pass for 'diced' in my kitchen in a million years; No, Chef! But, they are what they are. The tomato paste was a few tablespoons I didn't take the time to separate before I froze it, so I just dropped the whole thing in while I brought it all to a simmer.

I tasted a carrot & onion spoon first, mmm! Then as it started to simmer, I tried a bean and celery bite: yum! Finally I think it's about done so I go for one of those huge diced tomatoes, not really thinking about it, and I end up with a mouth FULL of thawed tomato paste 🤣 so now I gotta decide do I eat it or head over to the rubbish bin or what? I've got this full mouth of a little bit of soup and a whole lot of tomato paste and there's no way on this planet it's going back towards the pot of soup 😆😆😆

And that is the story of how I ate the most tomato paste at once in my entire life.

#plantbased #oilfree #tomatopaste #minestrone