Minestrone (and More!).

Tonight, LeeLee and I attended a long-awaited meeting of our monthly dinner group – a group of friends who take turns hosting potluck dinners at one house each month.  I say “long-awaited” because it was supposed to happen a couple of weeks ago, but a deluge of snow forced the hosts to postpone!  We were afraid that was going to happen again tonight – half a foot of snow looms large for tomorrow – but we managed to thread the needle and make it to dinner and home again in the nick of time.  Good thing, too – as usual, the spread was fantastic!

Sometimes, our dinner group hosts announce a theme for the month’s meal; sometimes not.  Tonight, we enjoyed an Italian feast (this dinner was supposed to happen on Valentine’s Day weekend, remember), and LeeLee and I brought minestrone for the occasion.

With our selection firmly in mind, this morning I pulled out my recipe for Italian Wedding Soup from my much-loved copy of Vegan Planet by Robin Robertson, and got the Crock-Pot ready to go.  I admit I went a bit offroad with my interpretation of Robertson’s recipe – my ingredients don’t sync up one-to-one with hers – but her version definitely provided the foundation for my own!

I put a can of cannellini beans, two cans of mixed vegetables, a can of diced tomatoes, two ribs of diced celery, one diced onion, and a healthy dose of dried parsley in the crockery and finished it off with a carton of vegetable broth (four cups in all), turned the slow cooker on, and moved on with my life.  When it was time for us to leave for the party tonight, I carried the cooker, heating element and all, out to the car, nestled it in place on the floorboard with a plethora of towels and rags, and hoped for the best.

LeeLee did his level best to keep the ride, well, level, but I fear I was overly optimistic when putting the soup into the cooker earlier today.  At the beginning of our ride, the minestrone filled the Crock-Pot to the brim, but by the time we arrived at our hosts’ house, there was half an inch of headspace that wasn’t there before.  The floor mat in the car, in the meantime, was soaked with broth, as were the towels I had so carefully placed around the meal.  But all in all, the minestrone was no worse for wear, and it was certainly devoured in short order as part of the first course!  I dished up almost a dozen small bowls of the soup and brought only a few spoonfuls at the bottom of the slow cooker back home with me.

As far as the rest of the meal went, we had plenty of food to feast upon – spaghetti and marinara, garlic bread, asparagus with butter sauce, beet salad, cole slaw, cheese and crackers, Key lime pie, cake, cookies … the list goes on.  Paired with a plethora of great wines, dinner left us all fat and happy!  And as usual, the conversation flowed freely, as did the laughter.  I can’t think of a better way to ring in a Monday snow day!

:)