Mr.CBB’s Tomato Minestrone Soup Recipe

When the colder weather approaches soups, stews and chili are on the menu more often than not. In Mr.CBB’s Kitchen this week I have participated in the British Columbia Welfare Food Challenge by raise the rates. With this challenge you start with an empty pantry and you spend only $26 at the grocery store on foods you will eat all week. The purpose of the challenge is to get a better understanding about how challenging it can be to live on $109 a month for groceries given to welfare recipients. You can read about my journey along the way in The Grocery Game Challenge posts and What I ate the first 2 days of the challenge.

This quick homemade soup was created from my list of ingredients and I have to say it was absolutely amazing. So amazing that I couldn’t stop Mrs.CBB from stealing 3 bowls of the soup over the course of 3 days. This was such an easy minestrone soup to make.

A large pot of soup is not only easy to make but it’s a cheap way to fill you up with some healthy good food. This pot of soup used almost all the ingredients I had in my basket (I feel like I’m on that Food Network program “Chopped”). The only difference is I really only get to use what’s in my basket, no pantry to back me up. I would have loved to toss in some fennel greens to this recipe so if you have them toss away! If you really wanted to make it easy you could make this a slow cooker minestrone soup and come home to this wonderful soup after a long day at the office.

The tanginess in the soup comes from the tomato paste and the slice of lemon I tossed in after taking off the rind for another dish I was preparing. I used the juice and rind for my lemon vinaigrette to top my garden salad (really it was lettuce and carrots) don’t want to make it sound like it was full of vegetables because that was not the case. I made sure my lemon slice was good to the last drop.

I would have loved to make my Kalamata Olive bread and dip it in this soup. I would have also loved to grate fresh Parmigiano all over this soup. Can you tell I’m hungry! Give this recipe a try and please come back and tell me what you think.

Prep Time:

• 10 minutes to chop veg and prepare water and chicken cubes
• soak beans over night and boil them 15 minutes until tender then chill
• cook time: 35 minutes

Tools:

• Med Stock or Soup Pot
• Ladle
• Knife
• Cutting board
• Measuring cup
• can opener
• strainer for your black beans

Minestrone Soup Ingredients:

• 6 cups of cold water
• 4 chicken cubes
• salt
• pepper
• lemon slice
• 1 onion minced
• 2 carrots chopped into bits
• 2 tablespoons of tomato paste
• 2 cups of tubetti pasta
• 1 cup of cooked black beans ( if from dry)  (if from can just open the can)
• 2 table spoons extra virgin olive oil
• 1 clove of garlic minced

Procedure

• In your stock pot add the cold water and bring it to a boil
• Add in your chicken cubes
• Add in the carrots, onions and garlic
• Add in the tubetti pasta
• Add in the tomato paste
• Add in 1 teaspoon of salt and pepper
• Add in the black beans
• Add in the lemon slice
• Mix it all up and bring to a boil then lower to medium for another 30 minutes or until the pasta is cooked
• Take out the lemon before serving
• Add more salt and pepper if needed for your desired taste
• Ladle into a bowl and add a little extra virgin olive oil to the top for flavour

That’s it folks and I bet you thought this would be a difficult soup to make.In fact it is so easy it’s a great recipe to make with your children in the kitchen. You can teach them how easy it is to make a large pot of soup for a fraction of the cost of those convenience foods that cost you more than you need to spend.  If you take the time to learn new tricks in the kitchen other recipes will start flowing and before you know it they will be calling you the chef of your kitchen and people will want to be invited for dinner at your house.

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