Minestrone is so much more than a bean soup. This soup underlines all sensible cooking practices. Like the other great Tuscan soup, ribollita, minestrone is a beacon. If you have the ingredients to make either one (two of which are beans and their broth) it means you’re cooking steadily, buying good ingredients and saving the parts of them you don’t cook immediately to cook later.

It’s a seasonal soup: it should reflect the season, inside and outside your kitchen at all times. The beans you have cooked will always be at its centre, but the rest will change throughout the year. In the winter, it will be full of greens and pasta. In spring, include fresh peas and new onions; in summer: the first slim green beans and basil, and little courgettes and ripe tomatoes cut into cubes. (Editor’s note: If you want to make this soup vegan, skip the Parmesan rind and ricotta garnish and use a non-dairy pesto.)  


Method:

• Cook the onion, carrot, celery and garlic in the olive oil until tender in a big pot.

• Add the herbs, greens, tomatoes, root vegetables, beans and cheese rind, crushing the tomatoes against the side of the pot. Add liquid to cover.

• Simmer for 45 – 60 minutes until everything has agreed to become minestrone.

• Just before you eat the soup, cook enough pasta for the portion you’re planning to eat in a pot of salted boiling water. If you freeze minestrone, cook new pasta whenever you eat the minestrone you’ve frozen.

• Garnish with pesto or olive tapenade, a big dollop of fresh ricotta or simply parsley.
  
  Adapted from An Everlasting Meal, Cooking with Economy and Grace (Swift)