Minestrone Debut

I eat minestrone perhaps twice a year, and had never thought of making it, unless opening a can of Progresso counts. Then I saw a recipe for Sausage, Tomato, and Squash Minestrone in the Boston Globe magazine, and decided it might make a good dinner this week. I was right!

Nothing against Progresso, actually,
but this time I did it from scratch!

I only noticed the introduction after looking up the online version of the recipe -- its connection to football is not what sold me. Rather, the fact that many of the key ingredients were already in our fridge or freezer closed the deal. In the freezer was a pound of Italian sausage and some frozen squash. The recipe calls for butternut, but yellow squash was just fine. Pam had blanched and frozen it in season months ago. We also had a few of the other items on hand from other recent endeavors, so shopping for this meal was minimal.

A slight miscalculation was our assumption that we had kale. From our summer farm box we still have many green items in the freezer, and we both assumed kale to be one of them. I could not find it when the time came to put it in the soup, so we missed a few vitamins and a bit of fiber.

I found that it took me far longer than 7 minutes to cook the sausage through. I was a bit short on the called-for 1.5 quarts of chicken broth, so I added tomato juice to compensate. I also used a full cup of pasta. Otherwise, I followed the recipe quite faithfully. Were I to do it again, I would use two cups of pasta.

The overall result: perfect for a winter's evening, waiting for a snow storm. It will probably be even better tomorrow during the storm -- hearty food for shoveling! Given the simplicity of the ingredients, this was surprisingly flavorful. I recommend it!