Auntie Reggie’s Minestrone

Regina Turner Simmons and her weekday minestrone/photo by sister Donna.

Tuesdays or Wednesdays are usually soup days as it was last week when Donna’s sister, Regina, was here for Cakes 101, not only to teach me cake basics and the creams and curds that fill a cake and give a cake flavor. I also wanted to be able to show what a proper cake could look like in the book we’re currently working on, and as Regina bakes wedding and special-occasion cakes in the Hudson Valley, we brought her in for a working visit.

We spend Thanksgiving with Donna’s family in Germantown, NY, and last year she had two big pots of soup on the stove as family converged on the house, one of which was so beloved by my daughter I asked Regina to make while she was here. She asked only if I had some chicken stock and I said, I’d made some from the chicken we’d had the night of her arrival. She said, “Oh, the soup will be really good then.”

Soup really is markedly better with your own chicken or vegetable stock, but here, there are so many ingredients water will do or, if you must, good quality store-bought “broth” (though I’d diluted it with water).

During a break in the action, Regina got the mise en place together (cut onions, herbs, tomatoes, etc). It all fit on a small cutting board and was prepared long before the soup was ready (you could do it all a day ahead and refrigerate it if you need to get dinner on the table fast). The soup itself comes together in about 2o minutes. That and a salad and some good toasted bread made a hearty weekday dinner (and nourishing with all vegetables, and garbanzo beans). Thanks, Regina!

Auntie Reggie’s Minestrone


4 cans 15-ounce cans garbanzo beans (or a pound of dried, cooked separately, my preference but we didn’t have time)
1 onion, small dice
6 garlic cloves, minced
1 tablespoon olive oil
salt to taste (a couple of teaspoons)
2 teaspoons cumin
1 quart chicken stock or water
1 small can tomato paste
1 tablespoon minced rosemary
black Pepper to taste
soy sauce to taste (about a tablespoon)
6 plum tomatoes, small dice
2 cups cooked little pasta
2 tablespoons minced parsley
parmigiano-reggiano (optional)



Puree half the garbanzo beans.
In a large heavy pot, saute the onions and garlic in the olive oil over medium heat, adding the salt as you do.
When the vegetables are soft, about five minutes, add the liquid, tomato paste rosemary, pepper, soy sauce, pureed garbanzo beans and tomatos and simmer for about ten minutes.
Add the parsley and pasta and continue to cook till the pasta is hot.
Serve, topped with the parsley and grated reggiano.

This will feed 6 to 8 and is great left over.

If you liked this post, check out these other links:

My recent posts on making French Onion Soup and Matzo Ball Soup.
How to make your own consommé and clarifying it.
Food and Wine shares some recipes for Spring soups.
I of course used the Dalton-Ruhlman offset serving spoon and set the table with the offset soup spoons!

© 2013 Michael Ruhlman. Photo © 2013 Donna Turner Ruhlman. All rights reserved.