I hope everyone had a great, fun-filled Thanksgiving. If you’re anything like my family, you ate and then ate some more! And now you need to detox from all the eating. Look no further. This hearty soup is the cure. (Don’t ask me how eating more food cures holiday overeating, but in my humble opinion, soup cures pretty much everything.) One of my foodie co-workers introduced me to this soup, and I am so grateful he did. Now it’s hard for me to imagine my life without this dish in it. It’s so good with its medley of flavorful herbs, beans, pasta, and last, but not least, cheese!
There are a couple things to note with this soup. One, do not, I repeat, do not add the pasta until right before you are ready to serve the soup. In fact, you may want to add the pasta to the individual bowls right before serving. The ditalini pasta will absorb the liquid and become soggy. And two, my foodie co-worker suggested substituting Italian sausage for the ground beef, which I am going to try next time I make this. I used ground beef because I already had some on hand, but I think the Italian sausage would turn a delicious soup into an out-of-this-world, where-have-you-been-all-my-life kind of soup. But really, whichever kind of meat you go with, you can’t lose making this dish. Buon appetito!
the speckled spork 