save with jamie - happy frumpy ministrone

To help warm us through the last cold days of February there was nothing more comforting than Jamie's Happy Frumpy Minestrone. What looks like a bit of a hodgepodge is a smart little pantry clearing soup that eats like a stew.

This is a vegetarian soup with loads of cleverly used veggies including carrots, tomatoes, peas, butternut squash and spinach. Although most minestrone soups I've made before use kidney beans, this one uses romano beans and they were an excellent choice as they are slightly milder than kidney beans but very meaty. For the pasta Jamie recommends tossing in any leftover packages laying around, of which we have many. I chose the last of a package of orecchiette and another partially used bag of tri-colour bowties. As I threw them in I felt a little hesitant because I've used pasta in soups before to only have them absorb all the liquid and then become overcooked (this recipe distinctly comes to mind). Once complete it's served with a sprinkling of parmesan which adds so much flavour to the soup. Unfortunelty, as the soup sat around the pasta did infact absorb a lot of the liquid, which was a little annoying. This made so much soup we had it for lunch for the next few days afterward after adding chicken stock to help bring it back to soup-form. Overall, I loved the flavour of this dinner and it went over really well with Owen. I'm so pleased with how kid friendly so many of Jamie's recipes are and jam-packed with nutrition.