Good morning folks!

Hope everyone’s having a good weekend so far. Today’s post will be interesting as I’m compiling a lot of it on my phone. Work had been crazy as fuck this week and then we’re also having domain account issues. As March turned to April naturally. 

Think I’ve mentioned before how the majority of these posts are slapped together while I’m working, hence my dilemma. While I’ve edited and commented using just my phone the vast bulk of the Sunday Gravy posts are composed on a desktop. 

Anyway, white collar problems. 

Welcome back to the work week vegetarian soup rotation series. Today isn’t technically a soup since it’s closer to a pasta but there are soup-like elements to it.

We are making pasta e fagiola today or as it’s colloquially known “pasta fazool.” The fazool pronouncement comes from it’s Sicilian name which I can’t fucking research right now because I’m using my fucking phone instead of my desktop. 

This dish basically means pasta and beans. It’s a filling and delicious combination and one of the more satisfying dishes I’ve cooked during my – still ongoing – vegetarian foray.

Six weeks in motherfuckers!

This dish has some family history as well. Grandmommy Gladys made this fairly regularly and she included a lot of her own freshly grown vegetables in it. My brothers and I weren’t big fans of it when we were younger being the persnickety little sack-grabbers that we were. 

You can certainly use a vest array of vegetation up in this bitch, up to and including eggplant, mushrooms, zucchini hell the sky’s the fucking limit. 

While I’m working on getting rid of my fear of vegetation – being a vegetarian for six weeks will do that – I kept today’s version closer to the more familiar. 

Let’s take a look at our base ingredients.

You’ll see the familiar San Marzano tomatoes, some veggie stock, which I’ve been buying an ever loving shitload of lately.

Hey my phone auto-filled “Shitload” for me! That’s how you know it’s my motherfucking phone. 

Oh yeah, there’s the pasta and beans up there as well. Funny how the store had canned cannellini beans but not dry because I would have made these from scratch. 

Ready?

To the recipe!

Pasta E fagioli!

recipe greatly inspired by…

2 tablespoons olive oil

1 small yellow onion chopped

1 medium carrot chopped

1 celery stalk chopped

3-4 cloves garlic minced

2 bay leaves

1 (28 oz) can diced tomatoes and 1 15 oz can of tomato sauce or diced tomatoes

1 (32 oz) carton vegetable broth

2 (14 oz) cans cannellini beans, rinsed and drained

1 small parmesan rind

1 teaspoon dried thyme

1 teaspoon dried oregano

1 teaspoon dried basil

1 teaspoon dried rosemary

Dash of crushed red pepper

1 cup dried pasta salad macaroni or other small pasta

3 cups of baby spinach cut into ribbons

Grated Parm for service.

Chopping time!

See? Pretty much every soup begins this way. Next time I make this I will definitely use more carrots, celery and I’m certainly adding some goddamn mushrooms too.

To the soup pot!

Standard operational procedure requires the heating of the oil and the ten minute saute action.

I used to be able to find bay leaves or “laurel” all the time in those little cellophane packets for about 75 cents a bag but for some reason haven’t been able to in a few years. Now it’s something like this.

Hat tip to Brick Meathook and the Turkish style bay leaves. These bastards are about 7 bucks for that little-ass jar by the way.

Now into the pot they go along with the garlic.

Saute, saute, saute.

Remember last week where we added in a tablespoon of tomato paste to the sauteed veggies? Do that shit again and coat them up proper.

Now.

Pasta trick number 1.

That’s a rind from our parmiggiano reggiano that was so graciously gifted to us from blog resident 2Pack. You do NOT want to skip this part. It makes a huge difference. The parmesan rind will cook along with the sauce the entire time and we’ll only remove it at the end. 

Let’s get the party started.

Add the canned tomatoes and herbs and the veggie stock and get to a simmer.

Cook for a good hour or so at this point. Think marinara without overly tenderizing the vegetables.

Let’s get the beans ready for the soup.

You want to drain and rinse them since they are a bit slimy coming out of the can. In fact they’re slimy as shit.

Dump ’em in now.

Remember that the beans are already cooked so they only need to cook for an additional half hour or so. As the sauce/soup starts to build you can already see the outline of how satisfyingly delicious this will be.

Check it out.

Our next ingredient.

In goes the pasta until it’s just al dente.  Follow the basic directions on the pasta container for proper doneness. Pretty important step here because a gluey pasta would be supremely fucked up right here.

When the pasta is ready go ahead and fish out that now very gooey parmesan rind, and the bay leaves then give the dish final seasonings with salt and pepper if required.

Turn the heat off on the pasta fazool.

Final ingredient.

The spinach.

You regular readers will notice that I’ve begun using a ton of spinach, especially in these recent soups. What can I say I’ve seen the fucking light! Growing up, spinach was right at the top of the “Fuck you I ain’t eating that shit” hit parade. 

Part of the veggie awakening I’ve experienced is that not only are the vegetables nutritious they are insanely fucking delicious. I think one of the issues I had growing up was A) my dad beating the absolute shit out of me for not eating my vegetables That’s awesome! Thanks for that Dad! and B) the way my Ma prepared them.

Yes, yet another dig at my mom. 

Her method of preparation particularly in regards to spinach was to open one of those cans of pre-cooked slimy-as-fuck spinach and heating it in a pot.

That was not delicious, Ma!

Her method of cooking broccoli and other greens was dumping them in a pot of boiling water and cooking them until they wilted.

See above statement, Ma!

Back to the recipe.

Get that spinach into the pot next.

Give a few stirs and let the spinach get fully incorporated with everything else. Let the spinach melt in.

Oh yeah.

Grab yourself a serving bowl and grate some of the remaining parm on there. Right on top.

Magnificent!

The thing about using the parmesan rind is it “Funky-fies” the dish. The rind has the funk to carry a massive flavor note to this bad boy. I really wish I had added in some mushrooms now because that would double the umami action.

The thing about this dish? You won’t even notice it’s lack of animal protein. The balance with the pasta and the cannelini beans is insane.

Same as last week I made a big-ass pot of the pasta fazool today and had it for my week night dinners every night while I was at work. Also just like last week this damn thing got more delicious each day. Of all of the “soups” so far this is right at the top for overall satisfaction.

A quick last note: As I’ve said I’m six weeks into the vegetarian thing now and a strange coincidence has occurred. Two weeks ago when I made the beef and barley soup -without the beef – I just so happened to cook it again the same day that it appeared on Sunday Gravy! Last week with the lentil soup? Same thing! I made another batch later last Sunday.

Guess what I’m cooking later today for my work dinners next week?

Yep.

Makes the recipe research easy as fuck it does! 

I didn’t start out with the intention of this happening, it just simply did.

Not all is bright and shiny and the perfect bouncy tits with my vegetarian experiment and I’ve got a demonstration of that for you next week but these weekly soups have been magnificent and I attribute their deliciousness to keeping me on the vegetarian gravy train as long as I now have been.

Can’t wait to see the lab results when I visit the doctor in May.

I’m doing good things for myself! About goddamn time!

I appreciate you good folks, truly. 

As always it’s an honor and a privilege to have you along for the ride.

Let’s do it again next week.

Be safe out there.

PEACE!