Twinestrone Soup

You may have figured out by now that this blog is largely about cooking with kids. Cooking with kids doesn’t only mean what happens in the kitchen. Lately my kids have been very involved with menu planning and recipe planning. While we were enjoying a bowl of this soup I asked what we should name this recipe and they came up with the name Twinestrone since it’s minestrone created by twins. That made perfect sense!

My daughter loves soup. It is hands down her favorite thing to eat. I told them we were going to make a vegetable and pasta soup so they helped me plan the ingredients. This is a very basic minestrone that you can certainly play around with. We started in the beans aisle where my son chose a can of kidney beans.

Next we headed to the pasta aisle where my daughter chose little bow ties.

You start the recipe by sautéing carrot, celery, onion, garlic and whatever other vegetables you want to add. We chose squash.

When I first started cooking with my kids the jobs I gave them were very basic. Now that they are five (yeah, that happened last week) they are much more involved with all steps. My son will take any opportunity to use the sprayer so he enjoyed rinsing the beans.

My daughter felt very grown up adding the pasta to the soup pot.

After you have cooked the vegetables you add vegetable broth, beans, diced tomatoes and pasta plus my secret ingredient…a parmesan cheese rind. That’s right, you add the rind during the cooking process and remove it at the end. It adds a creaminess and richness to the soup. I stopped at my local cheese shop and bought a rind for a whopping 26 cents. It was money very well spent.

The soup needs to cook for about a half hour. It’s such a simple soup that kids can choose the ingredients for depending on what kinds of beans, pasta and vegetables they like. I was grateful that we made a pot of this last week because the next day my daughter came down with a cold and this was exactly what she wanted. Perfect for a chilly day or for nursing a cold.

Twinestrone Soup

Ingredients

1 tablespoon extra virgin olive oil
2 carrots, peeled and diced
2 stalks of celery, diced
1 zucchini or squash, diced
1 small onion, diced
2 cloves garlic, minced
1 can beans, rinsed and drained (I used kidney)
4 cups vegetable broth
1 14 oz can diced tomatoes
1 2-inch rind parmesan cheese
½ teaspoon dried basil
½ teaspoon dried oregano
¾ cup dried pasta of your choice
salt and pepper

Instructions

Heat olive oil over medium heat. Add carrots through garlic and cook for about 5 minutes, until vegetables softened. Add remaining ingredients and cook for about 30 minutes. Remove parmesan rind, adjust seasonings and serve.

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