🥣🥣🥣'Tis the season...for my family's favorite soup! 🥣🥣🥣

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5 Easy 5-Ingredient Soup Recipes for Quick Weeknight Meals | Simple Soup Ideas

½ cup extra virgin olive oil

3 tablespoons unsalted butter

1 cup onion sliced paper thin

1 cup diced carrots

1 cup diced celery

2 cups peeled, diced potatoes

¼ pound fresh green beans

1 pound fresh zucchini, cleaned and diced

3 cups shredded cabbage

1 ½ cups canned cannellini beans, drained

6 cups broth

Crust from an 8-16 ounce wedge of parmigiano-reggiano cheese

2/3 cup canned imported Italian plum tomatoes, with their juice

Salt to taste

1/3 cup freshly grated parmigiano-reggiano cheese for serving

Choose a stockpot that can comfortably accommodate all the ingredients.
Put in the oil, butter, and sliced onion and turn on the heat to medium low. Cook the onion in the uncovered pot until it wilts and becomes colored a pale gold, but no darker.
Add the diced carrots and cook for 2 to 3 minutes, stirring once or twice. Then add the celery, and cook, stirring occasionally, for 2 or 3 minute. Add the potatoes, repeating the same procedure.
While the carrots, celery, and potatoes are cooking, soak the green beans in cold water, rinse, snap off both ends, and dice them.
Add the diced green beans to the pot, and when they have cooked for 2 or 3 minutes, add the zucchini.
Continue to give all the ingredients an occasional stir and, after another few minutes, add the shredded cabbage. Continue cooking for another 5 to 6 minutes.
Add the broth, the optional cheese crust, the tomatoes with their juice, and a sprinkling of salt. Give the contents of the pot a thorough stirring. Cover the pot, and lower the heat, cooking at a steady but gentle simmer.
When the soup has cooked for 2 ½ hours, add the drained, cooked cannellini beans, stir well, and cook for at least another 30 minutes.
When the soup is done, just before you turn off the heat, remove the cheese crust, swirl in the grated cheese, then taste and correct for salt. If you are freezing the soup, remeber to remove and discard the cheese before you freeze it.

Notes:

Marcella's recipe calls for her Homemade Meat Broth, which is a mix of beef, bones, and vegetables. It is a great broth, but I use my own random freezer scrap bag stock, as well as a bit of Penzey's beef base, if the stock doesn't have any beef in it. When I am making this soup for my daughter and her wife, who are vegetarians, I skip the bouillion, and use a stock based only on vegetables, and it is still wonderful.
Try to keep the size of all the diced vegetables the same size
I save my cheese rinds in the freezer all year, and just toss them in when making the soup.
I usually am preparing some tomatoes for freezing while making this soup, so just "steal" the 2/3 cup needed, after they are blanched and peeled, rather than opening a whole can for the 2/3 cup called for.

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