MichelleS Minestrone - navy beans

Method

• In a large heavy kettle, place the beans, water, and carrots. Bring the liquid to a boil. Cover the pot and simmer the beans for 2 to 3 hours
• In a large skillet, place the sausage and fry it on medium heat until it is well cooked. Remove the sausage and set it aside. Leave the drippings in the skillet.
• In the same skillet (with the drippings) add the garlic, onions, celery, zucchini, basil, sage, and parsley. Saute the vegetables on medium high heat until the onions are transparent.
• Add the sauteed vegetables, chopped tomatoes, salt, and pepper to the soup.
• Chop the sausage and add it to the soup.
• Simmer the soup for 1 more hour.
• Add the elbow macaroni and stir it in.
• Snaketruck's additional notes:
• I use only 1 1/2 tsp black pepper, but I only use fresh ground pepper, which maybe is a little stronger than already-ground
• I fry the sausage, remove it, fry the veggies and then chop the sausage into little bite-size pieces and give it one more fry after the veggies go from the frying pan into the soup.
• I'm slow chopping veggies (I just like my veggies to be perfectly bite-sized), so I start washing veggies & chopping when the carrots and beans have been on for 90 minutes. By the time I'm done frying everything, the soup carrot-bean mix has been simmering for about 2.5 hrs.
• Once the sausage & veggies are in the soup, I let it simmer for a half hour, then get the elbow mac' cooking. Elbow mac is in the soup about 15 minutes later, and then I just let the soup go about 15-20 minutes more.
• Navy beans are not great northern beans! I've made this mistake a couple of times.
• Serves 8 according the recipe, but I'd say more like 10-12.