4: Minestrone in Minutes (Page 363, Nigella Express)

Today was one of those days I was just glad for it to end. I'm still feeling sick so I'm glad it is soup day. This is the first time I've made soup that didn't just involve boiling water and then stirring. I did cheat though and "real" vegetable stock. Even though everyone keeps telling me it's easy to make stock. Well I haven't read that section of my cook book yet. So don't rush me!

Nigella Lawson is my new God. I'd only ever looked at her cookbook for the pictures to be honest. But I got home from the gym (body combat) at 7:30, and by the time I'd had a shower and relaxed it was almost 8:30 and I was hungry. This took about 12 minutes to make and then you're supposed to let it stand for 5-10 minutes as well. When I was small I went to afternoon care with these nuns and they would feed us soup and bread, so I often reminisce about that while I'm eating soup. This soup was no different.

One of the reasons I don't often eat minestrone soup is that it usually comes with way too many vegies I don't like, such as onions. But this recipe was very sparse, so she obviously left something out because her picture looks a lot more colouful than mine. The next time I make this I will definitely put some celery in, problem is you can't just buy one skinny branch of celery (one of the worse thing's about cooking for one person, you can't eat all those vegies!). I did however add half a carrot, but red and orange doesn't make soup colourful it makes it monochromatic.

Overall, I did like the taste of soup. But I REALLY need to get some measuring cups or something. I added the beans to the stock and I thought, there was way too much soup so I kept adding more beans. And I did the same thing with the pasta. And as the pasta swelled up there was a little less soup. So towards the end I ran out of soup because I didn't trust the recipe. Now if I was in a chemistry lab my experiments would have probably exploded by now, but luckily nothing has exploded in the kitchen yet. I will definitely be making this one again though because it was delicious, at least the part that tasted like soup rather then just beans and pasta. And even though I put too many beans in, I still have half a can leftover. I can't make more soup, because I still have one bowl of soup left. So I will have to think of a way to get rid of those beans.

Cooking time: 20 minutes
Taste: 4 stars
Ease: 5 stars!!

Currently listening to "You know I'm no good" by Amy Winehouse