(vegetarians leave out bacon!)

Makes enough for 8

4 rashers bacon
1 small onion
3 oz Leek
2 oz celery
4 oz carrot
4 oz green pepper
2 oz cabbage .... Cavalo Nero !!!
4 oz peeled potatoes
2 oz haricot beans (or frozen baby broad beans)
6 teaspoons tomato puree (edit: or 1 tin toms )
2 oz pasta shapes
handful peas
chopped Parsley
1 clove garlic
4 pints stock (or water and 4 stock cubes)
s & p to taste
Parmesan to serve


Chop all the vegetables up into small dice. Shred the bacon.
Heat a little olive oil in a largish pan and sauté 1/2 bacon to release the fat, add onion and leek and let them sweat gently for 2-3 mins.
Add carrot, turnip and celery and sweat these with a cover for 15 mins without colouring.
Add tomato puree, add stock bring to a boil and simmer for 15 mins.
Add pasta
, potato and cabbage, simmer for 10 mins.
Add peas and simmer a further 15 mins.
Add remaining bacon, chopped garlic, parsley and beans.
Taste for seasoning and serve with grated Parmesan.

A good winter warmer!

ya see Lots you make 2 pans of the stuff one without bacon and one with ..........dead easy

great recipe FL

We had minestrone the night before last. We hadn't made it for ages. We used the water from boiling silverside. We have an Italian bean mix here, that we soaked first.

ooo I can see you are going to be posting parcels before long !!!

The other day I was all set to buy a bottle of anchovy sauce on the net. I had it all worked out for months. The bottle was finally empty, it was pay day, and the link didn't work. I since found out I must like it because of my English ancestors or something, as I heard it is used in pork pies. I thought I just liked it because of pizzas with anchovies.

The other day I saw mushroom sauce on Two Fat Ladies and thought that was interesting.

the anchovy sauce over here is famous and made by the same company as the mushroom sauce - Lea & Perrins. I like the Worcestershire sauce on my cheese on toast

Worcestershire is a staple here, we love it on lamb chops. DH made his own and it seems to get hotter. But Holbrooks is the brand I grew up with. My great uncle had a pile of discarded bottles outside his house, there wasn't a lot of garbage in his house, just the bottles I think. It was amazing, he must have loved it or the pile had been there for a long time.

What else can you use anchovy sauce for?

Hiya, anchovies - and anchovy sauce (I use Watkins) - are strange beasts.....either an anchovy fillet cooked in anything where you sweat off some onion, etc. first (like the minestrone?) or a drop or two of the sauce after, sort of enhances the flavours you're cooking, rather than leave a smell or taste of fish about? It's a must in my cupboard. Even have a pot of Gentleman's Relish lurking around in the fridge

Anchovy butter's good. Just soften the butter, add anchovy sauce to taste, form the butter into a roll, wrap it in greaseproof paper, and chill. Then you can slice it over fish or steak.

think we lost the thread here ... must make a vat of soup for the freezer