Her Inner Shine: Oh Happy Day

This post is going to be short and sweet. One of my best friends in the entire world is coming to visit me today. She has been traveling around Europe for the past 2 years (usually comes home at Christmas so we get to see each other then) and she just spend the last month and a half in BC with her boyfriend. She is headed back to NS to start the job hunt and on her way she has decided to make a quick stop in Calgary to visit me! She’s only her for a little less then 24 hours but I’m still very happy that she’s coming. I’ll be picking her up from the airport in about 3 hours.

Before I head to do a little cleaning and tidying I just wanted to share the amazing soup recipe that I made last night for dinner. It was adapted from Simple Bits.

Hearty Vegetable Minestrone Soup

3 tbsp of EVOO**
1/2 a medium onion, chopped**
2 cloves of garlic, chopped
2 young carrots, chopped
1 cup of celery, chopped
2 small zucchini, chopped
2 sprigs of fresh rosemary, chopped**
2 ears of corn, cut from the cob
1 cup of fresh green beans
1 box of organic vegetable stock
2 cups of water
2 large tomatoes (approx. 2 cups), chopped**
1/4 of a pack of whole wheat spaghetti
3/4 of a can of white kidney beans**
1/4 cup fresh basil, chopped – plus more for garnish
Fresh parmesan cheese for garnish (optional)

**Changes I made to the recipe – you can see the original here.

The recipe was simple but it took about 2 hours in total. It almost took an hour just to cut up the veggies but it was worth it in the end. Definitely don’t try this if your in a rush, it requires quite a bit of prep time.

I also decided to add some kidney beans to make it a little more hearty and filling for a full meal.

First, I chopped up all the veggies. Then in a large pot I heated up 3 tbsp of EVOO in the bottom. Once heated I added the onion, garlic, carrots, celery, zucchini and rosemary. Let that cook for about 5 mins stirring until the vegetables are a little soft.

Then add the fresh beans and corn and let those heat up (approx. 2 mins) then add the vegetable stock, water

And chopped tomatoes.

Bring the water and stock to a boil then let cook for about 10 more mins, stirring occasionally.

While everything else is cooking, heat up water and cook pasta according to directions on the package (before added the pasta break it up so it is in smaller pieces). Also, drain and rinse the kidney beans from the can.