Day 65: Pinwheel & Pancetta Soup

Tonight I have the rare privilege of eating alone.  Please don't get me wrong, it's not that I don't want to eat with my husband, it's that I'm glad my kids are in bed!  Eating by myself is a rare occurrence that I used to take for granted.  Not anymore.  So I eat my soup as a I write this blog and catch up on my email correspondence.  Hoping for a relaxing night!  I'm also hoping that his is my last soup recipe until fall.  I know it's supposed to snow tonight, but, enough is enough.  Maybe if I start cooking summer meals, it will draw summer near.

I've said before that neither Randy or I like beans or lentils very much.  He can tolerate them.  I pretty much can't.  It's a texture-thing.  But when I made my "Mighty Minestrone" soup, I added beans anyway, and then picked around them to eat.  That's when Randy asked me to make Pasta E Fagioli soup, which is kind of like minestrone.  He said his mom had an awesome recipe for it that he remembered from childhood.  So when she came for a visit last weekend, he asked her about it.  Apparently they both remembered that it had a lot of garlic.  (We like garlic in this family!)  So she mailed us her recipe a few days letter with a note that said, "I didn't remember the recipe being so vague."  Bless her heart, there were absolutely NO measurements written down, and the title read "Pasta Fazool."  (She is so cute!)  But this soup also has beans in it, obviously since "fagioli" in Italian means "beans."  Because of that, I didn't really want to make it exactly like the recipe (even if I could have) but I wanted to still use some of the ingredients and then add my own.  So, I came up with this:

Pinwheel & Pancetta Soup
This is A LOT like the minestrone soup I made on Day 7, however, it's not vegetarian.  That soup had vegetable stock and no meat.  This soup uses chicken stock and pancetta.  There are a couple other differences, also.  I was at the gym tonight when Randy ate it with the kids.  When I got back in the car, I had a text from him saying "Wow, Mom has to try this!  It's fantastic!"  I guess I did good... ;)
2 cups chopped pancetta
1 onion, chopped
5 cloves of garlic, chopped and separated
2 large carrots, peeled and sliced
1/2 cup dry white wine
28 oz can whole peeled tomatoes
2 tsps chopped rosemary
2 tsps chopped thyme
12 cups (or more) chicken stock
1 lb pinwheel pasta
1/2 bunch of kale, chopped
1 tsp salt
1/2 tsp pepper

In the bowl of a food processor, combine 2 cloves of garlic, the rosemary, thyme, and can of tomatoes.  Pulse until smooth.
Drizzle some extra virgin olive oil in a pan on the stove and cook the onions 1-2 minutes.  Add the remaining garlic and pancetta and cook until the onions are translucent and the pancetta is browning.  Add the carrots and cook a minute longer.

Pour in the white wine and cook the alcohol off (about 1 minute).  Then add the tomato sauce.  Pour in the chicken stock and bring the soup up to a boil.  Add the pasta and boil for 3-5 minutes.  Turn the heat down and add the kale, salt, and pepper.  Serve hot when kale is tender.  Sprinkle parmesan cheese on top.