Minestrone Soup with Cheddar Biscuits

Minestrone soup conjures up so many different kinds of vegetable soup, some with beans, some without, some with pasta and a myriad of vegetables. This soup is chock full of healthy vegetables like onions, carrots, celery, Swiss chard, tomatoes, potatoes and cannellini beans and flavored with fresh rosemary.  You saute’ some pancetta with the onions and add the vegetables and one of the secrets with this soup is that you puree half of the beans and add it as a thickener towards the end which makes it really rich and creamy and gives a lot of body to the soup.  If I were more organized, I would use dried beans and soak them overnight, but I usually just decide to make this soup and use canned beans that I  have on hand.  Cannellini beans are a white bean related to the kidney bean and mainly grown in Italy.  You can also use Great Northern beans.  I freeze any leftover Parmesan cheese rinds and add them to this soup when I make it.  I made some cheddar biscuits to go with the soup and they are easy to make in the food processor and really good and nice and cheesey – especially when the cheese on top gets lightly browned.  I like to make a double batch and freeze some so if I make chili or soup I can bring them out to serve.  Click here for the minestrone recipe….  Click here for the cheddar biscuit recipe….