Sorry for the lack of updates, but I have an excuse. I’m in the midst of several huge holiday projects involving food, including two potluck dinners this weekend, cookies for Christmas Eve (as commissioned by my grandmother) a huge meal for mine and Rob’s solo Christmas Day dinner (his parents are jet-setting off to COSTA RICA for Christmas, so it’s just me and him), and last but certainly not least, PAUL’S FREE TURKEY EXTRAVAGANZA. Paul’s office gave him an 18-pound turkey, so we’re gonna have us a feast. Even though I don’t eat turkey. Whatever. I promise, it’s coming.

So, I’m a total dweeb, seriously. Do people still say dweeb? I’m a dweeb. Whenever people would mention to me in public that they’d seen my food blog, I’d get all embarrassed and feel like a loser. And I decided I wasn’t going to do it because I wanted to be cool. You know.

And then people started asking me what happened to it, and it was way more embarrassing to say that I didn’t want to do it anymore because I wanted to be cool, so fuck it, here’s some soup.

Seven-Veggie Soup

This technically has eight vegetables in it, but Rob said that Seven-Veggie Soup was a catchier name, so let’s go with that. You could use whatever you wanted, really. I had started out intending to make traditional minestrone, or at least what I thought traditional minestrone was, but as it turns out, there are no hard and fast rules to minestrone.

So, here we go. I had some zucchini and the very, very last of the summer squash. It looked a little anemic, but I figured it’d be okay. Dice these both into bite size pieces. Heat some olive oil in the bottom of a big pot, and add a clove or two of minced garlic, and maybe half an onion. Sautee them until they are soft and fragrant. This, incidentally, is the beginning to every good recipe for soup, and also for tomato sauce. I love this method, it just feels so familiar and smells so good. Anyway, enough dweebiness. I added a few shakes of dried oregano. You could use dried basil, or Italian seasoning, or whatever you like. The key to cooking with dried herbs is to add them at the beginning so they have time to release their flavors. When using fresh herbs, add them at the end so they don’t lose all their flavor in cooking.

Throw in your chopped zucchini and squash and stir. I also threw in a diced red pepper at this point, which I thought was really good, but Rob was not sold on. Also, I’d had half a bag of frozen corn leftover from something, and I added that too. Cook about 5 minutes until the veggies are soft, then add a can of crushed tomatoes. The big can. If it had been summer, I’d have pureed some fresh tomatoes, but it’s not, so canned it is. Pour in 2 cans of vegetable broth and bring it to a boil. Once it’s boiling, lower the heat a bit and simmer, covered, for 15-20 minutes.

Add a can of drained white beans. I used navy beans, which prompted me to keep singing that line from that terrible Adam Sandler song that just goes, “navy beans navy beans navy beans!” Clearly you know exactly what I’m talking about. Also add about a ½ a cup of uncooked small pasta. I actually ended up putting more in because I thought it didn’t look like enough, but I was wrong. ½ cup it is. I used ditalini, because that’s what I thought was usually in minestrone. Cook until the pasta is tender, about 10 minutes. Just keep trying it. Once the pasta is tender, throw in a big handful of spinach and let it wilt for a few minutes, then remove the soup from heat. Season with salt and pepper if need be, add a little fresh basil if you want, and serve.

I garnished with freshly grated asiago cheese, because Rob gets antsy if he doesn’t get at least some animal-product in him, but this would certainly be a good vegan soup otherwise.

I wish the picture had come out a bit better, because the soup was definitely more red and vibrant than this, but oh well. Rob says he was pleasantly surprised and went into it timidly, which isn’t surprising because we recently had someone who knows him well convinced that Rob is allergic to vegetables.

Eight hot dogs. Woo!