Veggie Pesto Bean Soup

Veggie Pesto Bean Soup Want to grab a zukini and some basil, a little parmesan oregano out of the fridge. Need a little bowl, I will grab that one back here and it needs some potatoes and onion and garlic - all for the soup. Some beans for the soup, I got some canilini and some garbanzos beans we just pile this on here so it can carry more. Here we go, what else do I need? Some pine nuts - that is for the Pesto and a couple of things the chicken stock. Let’s see, I am not making two trips just for that stock. Here we go, if you are not comfortable cooking or you don’t cook a lot? Well try and relax yourself before you start cooking, you know maybe make yourself a cup of tea. If that is what you like or I like to have a nice glass of wine when I am cooking. Put some music on that you enjoy, set the mood, set yourself up to really enjoy it. Because the pay-off is huge, when you make your own dinner and your stomach is full of something that you put together yourself. I am just telling it is a much bigger emotional pay-off. And soup, I mean what is more comforting or therapeutic than a wonderful big pot of soup. And you know the store bus stocks and broths have come such a long way flavor wise. You really can get long slow cooked taste in just a matter of minutes, we chop up some fresh veggies and combine it with a little help from the store. By buying some store broth stock and there you go. In no time at all, it is taste like your grandma was in the kitchen cooking for you. And maybe after a bad day, I got to have that. I am not getting kind of emotional pay-off out of take food. Of course if you are really guilty, you know, we go home, we are tired. We had a bad day, we order a bunch of take out food. We eat too much, there is too much salt and fat in it, so then we feel even worse instead of better. Food Chain do that, plus if you do your own cooking, something really helpful like this soup that we are making here. You could feel really good about eating a lot, I am all about volume. I like the a lot of food, so now I got zukini and onions going in there and this is why I always work on a really big board right next to the stove. So I can do the old chop and drop, chop the vegetables here - drop them right in the pot. It saves you time of course but you know, more than that - you don’t have to dirty a bunch of little bowls carrying stuff back and forth between your cutting board and the pots. I will run my knife through that, get all the veggies on the pot and I am going to let this start working together. And turn it up a little bit, I got it a between medium and medium high here. Little salt and pepper in there, while the soup is working, I got myself a big pocket of time here. Where all of those veggies are working, I will start on my Pesto. I love Pesto, now you can make it with arugula, now you can make it with arugula, with parsley. With spinach, but Pesto kind of easy is always made with basil. And I need about a cup so I am just going to bowl it here, now it looks about a cup to me - the beautiful leafy tops. Good way to store your basil and in air-tight bag, keep it dry, keep the paper towel there. Keep all the moisture away from the leaves so they don’t get dark and discolor. I need a clove of garlic in there, give a little whack, they need about three ounces each handful how to do me of pine nuts. And three tablespoons of the paremesan oregano, so about a handful of pine nuts, canole nuts, you can also use some walnuts if you have those on hand. And you don’t have any pine nuts. Parmesan oregano - a good handful of that, excellent now put the lid on. And then just stream in the 3:53, so yo got a nice thick Pesto from and that is we are going to stir into the soup. To put that flavor of the basil all through the soup, so I got two kind of light colored beans here. I got some garbanzo beans and I got some white kidney beans. These canolini beans here, now I am going on ahead and add my chicken stock now. You know and as I said before the can stocks and broths have really come a long way. They have tons of flavor, they make them with no fat, no MSG, no wheat glucose. Now I need six cups of stocks so I am putting in a box and a half. Because each one of these paper containers is about four cups. Here we go, now once you put the liquid in, you can bring the heat up a little. And add your beans, that will help thicken up the soup too, if you like your soup really thick. You can mash up a few of the beans and then put them in it will be even thicker and richer. Here we go, look that come up to a boil and the rest of it is I am just going to pop the top. Top it right in the fridge, perfect, I can add it to sauces all week long. Now in the fridge I am going to grab some arugula, nice, spicy greens and I am going to grab some robiola cheese - I love robiola. And some pressuto, I got a little bit of pressuto here and I am going to make a cup of paninis. Here is my pressuto, make myself a little assembly line here, here is my robiola cheese. Look at that - beautiful, no pea color, I can't wait to eat. This is like why I like to cook for myself and why it is so therapeutic to me. Because when you cook for yourself, you control the quality of ingredients. You can feel good about everything you are eating because you know it was made with good fresh vegetables or the best cheeses and then the best breads. I got a layer of cheese in there, a couple of little pieces of pressuto and a few pieces of arugula. That is it, simple and you put on a grill and away you go. Now you have to weigh this down, the kind of press it, so I am just going to put a big heavy skillet right on top of it. And there you go, I am going to grab a box of chopped frozen green beans here to add to the soup. You need a tray to work with and you need some egg noodles for the soup. Now to the soup, you are going to add one 10 ounce box of the frozen chopped green beans. Of course you can also use the fresh, you know, but when they are not in season - I got to tell you this. There is nothing wrong with the frozen green beans - not a thing and now I am going to add about a cup of thin egg noodles. You can also use broken spaghetti, anything you like. This is based on a soup I actually had in Italy though and they had egg noodles running all through it. So I am going to use about a cup - look at how good those look, nice and crisp on the outside and the greens are still nice and bright green on the inside. I am putting my Pesto on the bottom of my own soup bowl. And then I am just going to grab my ladle and the ladle that soup right on top. And then stir it in and the flavor of the basil goes all through it. Now the reason I am not stirring at all in the soup pot and just saving it that way. It is because I don’t want that sauce to cook, Pesto is a raw sauce - it smells amazing already. So that basil flavor is going all through and it will stay nice and beautiful green like that. So gorgeous, a little cheese on top of that, I am feeling better already. The end of hard day, there is nothing like a good home cooked meal. And not just your hard day, if somebody you love had a really tough day. Make him a nice big pot of soup in a semi. Makes everybody feel better, now I got to show you the inside of one of these, see they are lightly toasted. The greens keep their colors, see how the arugula kept its color? The cheese is just melty, yummy and that pressuto, its just enough salt in there to make that really work - excellent. And there is no oil on the outside of this, it is even simpler than making grilled cheese in my opinion. And you can certainly eat you paninis cold too but I like a little crispy, crunch on the outside.