Pbenjay's Blog

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Just like when Spring is about to arrive, I get the urge to plant, to clean up the yard and the house and to watch every day for bright green shoots coming up – my Daffodils and Forsythia are the first to bring the much needed color in the yard….I might be digressing…well in the early stages of Autumn, I get the urge to cook and to cook hearty stews and soups and to do so in my crock pot.  So when I saw the recipe for Vegetarian Pasta and Fagiole soup in the Wegman’s Menu magazine and I had recently made the Slow Cooked Beef Minestrone, I JUST ASSUMED this soup was made in a crock pot too, NOT!

Unfortunately I didn’t discover this misapprehension until after I had soaked a pound of Northern Beans overnight, not until after I had rinsed the beans and put them in the crock pot with the required 10 cups of water. Mmmm what to do?  I could have poured it all into a stock pot as the recipe stated but I needed to be out of the house for a couple of hours!  I decided to leave the beans in the crock pot, turned it on high and left.  I was pretty sure this recipe would adapt but I wasn’t positive, c’est la guerre.

1 pkg dried Northern Beans, sorted and rinsed

10 cups of water

3 Bay Leaves ( I used 5)

2 sprigs of fresh rosemary

1/4 cup olive oil

2 medium onions 1/2 inch dice (3 cups)

4 cloves of garlic, minced

2 carrots, peeled 1/2 inch dice

1 can (14.5oz) diced tomatoes or 4 plum tomatoes

1 carton (32 fl oz) + 2 cups of vegetable stock ( I used chicken broth because that’s what I had in the house)

1/2 tsp of crushed red pepper

2 tsp salt

2 tsp ground black pepper

2 pkgs (6 oz each) of baby spinach

1 1/2 cups Ditallini pasta cooked per directions

Place beans in large stock pot, cover with water and allow an extra 2 ” of water. Cover, tilt to vent and soak 8 hours or overnight.

Drain beans, discard soaking water. Add beans and 10 cups of water to medium stock pot. Heat on HIGH  for 10 minutes until boiling and skim off foam.  Add bay leaves and rosemary, reduce heat to MEDIUM. Cover, tilted to vent steam.  Cook 1 hour; do not stir.

Heat olive oil in large stockpot on MEDIUM. Add onions, garlic and carrots. Stir occasionally and cook until vegetables are tender.

Add diced tomatoes, stock, crushed red pepper, salt and pepper.  Simmer 10 minutes, stirring occasionally, set aside off heat.

Check the beans for tenderness; if not completely tender, cover completely and cook as long as needed.  Discard bay leaves.

Add the beans and liquid to the stock pot with veggie/tomato mixture. Stir and bring to a boil. reduce heat to MEDIUM-LOW. Cover, tilted to vent steam. Cook 30 minutes; stir occasionally.

Add spinach 10 minutes before serving. Adjust seasonings

To serve, put a portion of pasta into individual bowls and then ladle hot soup over the pasta.

Recipe from Wegman’s MENU magazine

What I learned:

You can make this in the crock pot but the beans took literally all day to cook, but I had the time.

Cooking the pasta separately is a great way not to have it blow up in size and get mushy.

We loved the dish, actually served it along with some left over Broccoletti which I had made the night before.  And I will have to write about that recipe which I saw in the same magazine but would have never made had it not been for Gus, a chef at Wegman’s who often demonstrates the making of a dish and gives out samples.

My only complaint was that for what I thought would be a simple Sunday supper, I used 3 pots.

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