Soup 29: Cannellini Bean & Tagliatelle Soup

I know, I know.  I'm lagging on the soup posts.  I have a few that I still need to blog about, but last week's soup was so good that I'm skipping a few recipes for now.

Drop everything and make this soup right now.  Up till this point, the tomato fennel has remained my favorite.  And it may still be, but this recipe comes a really, really close second.  Not only was it delicious, it was super easy to make and the ingredients were very affordable.  I've made enough soup now to know to keep key ingredients in my pantry when I find good prices.  I already had my big can of Swanson Reduced Sodium broth, Christopher Ranch chopped garlic and TJ's canned tomatoes on hand, so only the specialty ingredients were all that was needed.

The recipe called for some ingredients I thought I would not be able to find during my regular weekly shopping trip to Trader Joe's.  I wasn't in the mood for visiting multiple stores, so I went directly to Whole Foods this time, fully prepared to spend a ton.  And I could have easily spent more, but I found some less expensive ingredients to swap out (also knowing I had some of the ingredients at home) and the soup came out to be quite affordable. Maybe someday I will try this soup again using the ingredients called for, but it was so good, that it's hard to imagine the substitutions would make a huge difference and   I saved close to $8 with the substitutes.  The original recipe called for Cranberry Beans, with a side note that it's worth hunting them down if they were not readily available.  Whole Foods did carry them but only dried, not canned, and for $6 a bag.  I debated it for a second but quickly realized dried beans would add hours to the cooking time, so I opted for the $0.99 cannellini beans, and they worked just fine.  Feel free to weigh in if you have strong feelings about cranberry beans.  The other substitution I made was tagliatelle pasta for pappardelle.  Both are egg noodles, but the pappardelle is wider, and was a few bucks more at the market.  One pricey ingredient I would splurge on for this recipe is the dried porcini mushrooms.  These were over $70/pound.  Luckily, I only needed a few ounces amounting to about $6.00.  The steak flavor of these mushrooms ads a ton of flavor to the soup.  It's a must ingredient!

Porcini Mushrooms coming back to life

To reconstitute the mushrooms, I soaked them in hot water for 30 minutes.  While waiting for them to soften, I diced the tomatoes and chopped the sage leaves. Once the mushrooms were soft, I drained and coarsely chopped.  I heated a few tablespoons olive oil in a pot and sauteed the garlic, sage and mushrooms for a few minutes.  The smell was incredible.  At this point, I was convinced I had found a winning recipe.  I added the tomatoes and cooked a few minutes more.  I then added the chicken broth and brought to a boil. I added the pasta (broken up) to cook for about 5 minutes and then added the beans.  By this time, my moth was watering.  A tad bit of salt and pepper finished this off and it was ready to serve and enjoy.

Sage, Mushrooms, & Garlic

Usually the family is skeptical of my recipes, but they ate this one up.  Not a trace remained.  A definite winner!  I took leftovers for lunch for 2 days and enjoyed every bite!

Ingredients


2 oz dried porcini mushrooms / $5.84 / Whole Foods
3 Tablespoons Olive Oil / From home
1 clove of garlic / from home
Sage leaves / $1.99 / Whole Foods
1 cup Canned diced tomatoes / $2.49 / Trader Joe's
7-8 cups chicken broth / $2.49 / Smart & Final
1 cup Tagliatelle pasta / $3.39 / Whole Foods
1 can Cannellini beans / $0.99 / Whole Foods
Salt
Pepper


Prep time: 35 minutes
Cook time: 15 min
Servings: 8
Taste: 5 stars
Prep: easy
Cost: $17.19 ($2.14 per serving)