The nastiest vegetables in the world

Veg-All® Original Mixed Vegetables
A delightful blend of Carrots, Potatoes, Celery, Sweet Peas, Green Beans, Corn, and Lima Beans in a light onion broth.

Food has been a central figure in my existence. Often I remember things by the food I was eating at the time. This stems clearly from my family because I remember them talking in this way. Being champion life-avoiders, they had to have something else to talk about rather than our problems, and being poor, there wasn’t much to discuss besides food or TV, and we had plenty of discussions about both.

So I remember vegetable soup. The nastiest vegetable soup in the world, made with canned Veg-All vegetables and gristly beef to give us some protein. It was horrible, and I was quite happy the day my mother made it way too salty and we couldn’t eat it at all. I ran out of the house laughing.

The Lima Beans were particularly disgusting.

As an adult, I promised myself to never eat vegetable soup. Many years later, I was at an Italian restaurant, and they served minestrone soup. It was actually passable. Even the tiny little white beans were edible.

Coming nearly full circle, I made my own minestrone soup yesterday, and I must say that it is the finest minestrone on the planet. Here’s the recipe:

Finely chop 1 onion, 1 small leek, 1 small zucchini, 2 carrots, 1 rib of celery. Saute the onions in 2 tablespoons olive oil, along with 2 tablespoons of finely chopped parma ham. After the onions are translucent, add the vegetables, and saute them for a few minutes.

Add 3 tablespoons of mild baked beans and a good tablespoon of tomato paste. Stir and saute a bit longer. Add vegetables to 1.5 liters of chicken broth. Add 1 tablespoon of parmesan cheese. Salt and pepper to taste. I added lots of pepper, but since I used commercial chicken broth, I didn’t need any additional salt.

Heat to boiling, then reduce and cook on low for about 10 minutes. Right before serving, add a handful of pasta, I used cellentani this time, but an elbow macaroni is fine. Cook until pasta is al dente. Serve. Makes 4 meal-sized servings, or 6-8 smaller servings.

And no Veg-All.