Cooking with Little Chef

I made soup for dinner tonight and Jackson wanted to help. So I set him up with his very own soup pot, gave him some ingredients, and the Little Chef in him was born.

Mommy's Soup Recipe: Pasta Bean Soup
• olive oil
• 4-5 cloves of garlic, minced
• 2 14-oz. cans of beans (kidney, white, pinto...anything works)
• 1 14-oz can of diced tomatoes
• 1 small can of tomato paste
• 7 cups of vegetable stock (3 vegetable bouillon cubes dissolved in 6 cups water + one extra cup of water for good measure)
• 2-3 cups of pasta (shells, rotini, radiatore, etc.)
• basil, oregano, Italian spices and freshly ground black pepper (whatever looks and smells good to you)
• parmesan cheese to sprinkle on top

Saute garlic in olive oil until it smells really good and is almost brown (but not).
Add vegetable stock, tomato paste, beans and spices. Bring to a boil; reduce heat to simmer for a while.
Add pasta and bring back up to almost boiling; cook for another 10 minutes or so, until it smells really, really good.
Eat with crunchy bread and red wine (if you're not pregnant, that is) then go lay on the couch all night.

(This soup is really, really, really good the next day too, though the pasta usually becomes "monster pasta" overnight and it's more like a thick stew the next day. To avoid this, you can cook the pasta separately, rinse under cool water to stop the cooking and then add it to the soup. I just usually throw it all in because this is my easy soup; I don't want to create more dishes.)

Jackson's Soup Recipe:
• some water
• some flour
• oregano (after tasted by Little Chef who immediately demanded "JUICE!" to cleanse his palate)
• basil
• one kidney bean
• one white bean
• two rotini pasta pieces

Stir.
Repeatedly take beans and pasta pieces in and out of pot for good measure.
Scoop up water and dump back in often.
(Eating this soup is not recommended, though Little Chef tried.)