On Mondays, Michael explores the world of environmentalism and its intersection with queer culture in the column It’s Easy Being Green, despite what Kermit says.

Things are a little mixed up around here, and I was unable to do a video of the huge pot of soup I made tonight.  However, instead of posting a video, I’ll just post the recipe and links to steps that I’ve already posted.

From what I understand, minestrone soup was invented to use up extra ingredients that one happens to have around the kitchen.  As such, it feels silly going out and buying small amounts of random vegetables and tossing them together.  But it’s such a great soup, with a wide variety of vegetables and legumes to provide a lot of protein, carbs and nutrients.  Enjoy.

Here we go.

Minestrone Soup

Ingredients

• 1/2 lb dry small pasta, like tiny elbows, alphabets(?) or orzo
• 1 onion, diced
• 3 stalks of celery, diced
• 2 tablespoons of olive oil
• 1/4 cup of balsamic vinegar or red wine
• 1 large can of diced tomatoes
• 1 cube vegetarian bouillon
• 2 carrots, diced
• 2 large potatoes, diced
• 1 medium zucchini, diced
• 1 medium yellow summer squash, diced
• 1 handful green beans, cut into small lengths
• 1 large can kidney beans, drained
• 1 large can chick peas, drained
• Herbs and spices (salt, black pepper, dried oregano, basil and parsley)

Directions

Cook the pasta according to the directions. When done, drain and rinse with cold water, then drizzle with olive oil.

Dice the onion and celery.  (Click links above for video instructions.)  Pour the olive oil into a large soup pot and put on high heat.  Once hot, add the celery and onion.  Sauteé for about 5 minutes, or until the onion is translucent.  Add the vinegar or wine and cook for an additional 5 minutes or so, until the steam rising from the pot no longer smells like vinegar or alcohol, depending on the ingredient you used.  The goal here is to cook off the alcohol or vinegar, keeping the robust flavor of the grape-based liquid.

Add the tomatoes to the mixture.  Fill up the empty can with water and add to the pot as well, stirring in the bouillon cube.  Add the potato and carrot and simmer for 5 minutes or so.  (Potatoes and carrots take longer to cook than the remaining ingredients, so they are added to the mixture first.)  Once you’ve given the harder vegetables a head start, add the rest of the ingredients.  Bring to a boil and cook for an additional 20 minutes or so.   When done, the potato cubesand the green beans bits should be firm but not too hard.

The pasta should be added to the soup before serving.  If you plan to keep the soup around for a while, keep the pasta separate and only add just before eating.  The pasta will soak up all the liquid from the soup and then fall apart.  Ick.

Let me take this moment to mention that I bring soup to work with me every day.  Instead of bringing it in a thermos or Rubbermaid container, I use mason jars in which pasta sauce comes.  It’s another way to make use of resources that you already have around.  I buy a brand of pasta sauce that comes in traditional mason jars.  Once I use one, I wash it and keep it around for packing soup for lunch, or even using as water glasses.  It’s a win-win.  I get free thermoses, and I save lots of resources from landfill or the recycling center.