Alphabet Soup

We recently had a rare (for summer in the Sunshine State) long and rainy, Cat in the Hat kind of day. After a morning of coloring books, DVD's, overcast skies and unending drizzle, I broke out the Dutch oven despite the season to make a cold weather favorite for lunch.

2 Tbs olive oil
1 sweet onion, chopped
2 stalks celery, including leaves, sliced
2 carrots, sliced
1-2 cloves garlic, crushed
1 Tbs dried mixed Italian seasoning
kosher salt and fresh ground white pepper to taste
28 oz can crushed tomatoes
15.5 oz can kidney beans, rinsed well
3-4 C water
1 C alphabet pasta

Heat olive oil on medium in a large, heavy bottomed pot. Add onion, celery (reserving leaves), carrots, garlic and seasonings. Stirring regularly, saute vegetables until soft, about ten to fifteen minutes. Add tomatoes, kidney beans, reserved celery tops and water, then bring to a boil. Add pasta and cook according to package directions. Adjust seasonings and serve. This makes a humongous pot of soup. The extra freezes nicely to save for the next rainy day.

The best part of this meal was The Kid's musical accompaniment. It went something like this:

Look, there's a Z! Z is for zebra, mm mm mm. Ooh, that's a kidney bean, mm mm mm. Look, I found a D! D is for dinosaur, mm mm mm.

I'm sending my well lettered soup both to Deb in Hawaii of Kahakai Kitchen for Souper Sunday and to Psychgrad of Equal Opportunity Kitchen, who is hosting this week's Presto Pasta Nights, the long running event begun by Ruth of Once Upon a Feast.