Minestrone Soup

Rustic, comforting and wholesome, minestrone is an Italian vegetable stew traditionally composed of any vegetable in season. Since there is no set recipe for this soup it lends well to personal adaptation. Still you can count on seeing a couple of ingredients to show up in most versions of minestrones: cabbage, carrots, onions, zucchini, tomatoes and beans. In the recipe I chose, a medley of vegetables are flavored by bits of pancetta and thickened by pureed creamy white beans. Although, you can skip the pork entirely and use vegetable stock to make it a vegetarian recipe. If you have parmesan rinds (I save them in the freezer) throw them in with the vegetables to create depth and infuse flavor, just don't forget to remove them when the soup is done.

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