Chunky Minestrone

I have become besotted with this. I mean, how can I not be? The cover is lime green and the pictures inside are almost painfully pretty. Added bonus is that all the recipes are vegan, something I have found myself more and more interested in. I spent a good chunk of the afternoon exploring this cookbook. In honor, of Eat, Drink, and Be Vegan I bring you a completely non-vegan recipe. Baby steps, my friends...

Chunky Minestrone

1tbsp olive oil

1 onion

1 cup carrots

1 cup celery

handful of spinach

a can of beans (I used garbanzo)

4 cups chicken stock

Parmesan Cheese

Salt/Pepper

In a high-sided sauce pan or dutch oven heat up the olive oil. Put in the chopped onion and saute until it becomes translucent. Add chopped carrots and celery and cook until the vegetables soften, about 10 minutes. Cover with the stock and add the beans. Let the soup simmer for about an hour, adding the spinach right before you take it off the heat. Add parmesan cheese to taste.

In light of the first part of my post, feel free to make this vegetarian by using vegetable stock. Nix the cheese to make vegan.

One of the things that I love about minestrone is that you can pretty much throw anything in your fridge into the soup. So, feel free to make this an improvise where you feel necessary. Odds are, it will turn out wonderfully!