Everything's in it Minestrone
Perfect on a cold winters night with warm crusty bread straight from the oven. Weve made this dish from scratch but feel free to use leftover meatballs from a previous meal and add your favourite veggies. Thats what we mean when we say it has everything in it.
![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() |
Ingredients
|
Method |
Energy kJ (kcal) | 1290 (308) |
Protein (g) | 25.2 |
Fat (g) | 4.8 |
Saturated (g)
|
1.7 |
Carbohydrate (g) | 33.4 |
Sugars (g)
|
6.4 |
Sodium (mg) | 587 |
Iron (mg) | 5.8 |
Zinc (mg) | 4.1 |
Vitamin B12 (ug) | 0.9 |
Vitamin D (ug) | N/A |
Selenium (ug) | 5.4 |
Add tomatoes, tomato paste and stock and bring to a gentle simmer. Add cannellinni beans, half the can of kidney beans and pasta and simmer gently for at least 20 minutes or until the pasta has softened.
While soup is simmering, make tiny meatballs. Mix beef mince with dried basil, a good pinch of salt and a few grinds of pepper. Form a meatball from a heaped teaspoon of minced beef. Repeat until all mince mixture is used.
Fry meatballs in a little olive oil until lightly browned all over. Make sure they are small, otherwise they’ll break apart in the soup, though that’s not a complete disaster!
When pasta is softened, add meatballs, spinach and basil and stir through. Simmer for another 5 minutes then, if wished, serve with a swirl of pesto on top or a dusting of Parmesan, or both.
An extract from Minced with photography by Alan Gillard. Published by Penguin Group NZ. Copyright © Sue Hamilton and Dana Alexander, 2010. RRP $35.00. Available at all good booksellers nationwide.