As I get older I am thinking more and more about the meals my mother used to make. When I was young my parents scraped by more often than not with whatever they could get to feed their family. Most everyone did in the Maxwell Street, and later Pilsen neighborhoods of 1960's Chicago. There were many days in which we did without meat on the table.
Nowadays meatless meals are seen as good choices in cutting down or eliminating our intake of red and white meat, but back then it was sometimes a necessity not of choice. When our family had one of those thin weeks (usually in the winter, before or after the heating bill was due), my mom would pick up garden vegetables at the store, which were cheap. We didn't grow much except radishes in our back yard, because our dogs would usually ruin the plants. One of her go to's was vegetable soup, some times with barley and other times with shells, macaroni or whatever pasta she had on hand.
I have had a taste for this dish recently and came up with this recipe, which didn't quite match my memories of her soup, but came awfully darn close. She made her own stocks to begin with; for vegetable stock she brought rough chopped onion, carrots and celery to a boil and then allowed them to reduce. This stock was seasoned with spices she always kept around the house; salt, peppercorns, rosemary and thyme. For this recipe, I opted for store-bought low sodium vegetable stock. You could also use chicken stock, as she did if she had saved the bones from a previous meal.
Vegetable Soup (serves 4)
1 tbsp olive oil
1 cup medium chopped onion
1 cup peeled and chopped carrots
1 cup chopped celery (about two stalks)
3 cloves minced garlic
32 oz. low-sodium vegetable broth (1 carton)
1 can petite diced tomatoes, with juice
1 tbsp Worcestershire sauce
5-6 baby Yukon potatoes, peeled and medium diced
1/3 cup fresh parsley (or tsp dried parsley), chopped
2 bay leaves
1/2 tsp dried thyme
1/2 tsp dried rosemary, crushed
1 cup frozen or fresh green beans
1 cup frozen or fresh corn
salt and pepper to taste.
1 cup dried shells or other pasta
1 tbsp shredded Parmesan cheese
1. Heat the olive oil over a medium heat
2. add the onions, carrots and celery and saute for about 4 minutes, until the onions are clear, then drop in garlic and cook for another 30 seconds.
3. Add in broth, tomatoes, potatoes, parsley, bay leaves, thyme, Worcestershire sauce and salt and pepper to taste. You can add more dried herbs as you see fit at this time.
4. Bring to a boil and add the fresh or frozen green beans and corn.
5. Bring this to a medium low heat and cover, allow to simmer for 30 minutes, until the potatoes are tender. The last 10-12 minutes add 1 cup of dried pasta of your choice.
6. Serve warm, topped by a sprinkle of Parmesan cheese, with French bread.
