Souper Bowl

What's better than a fresh, hot bowl of soup on a cold, snowy January day? ,Well this January has not been cold or snowy, especially in comparison to last January (not that I'm complaining by any means because I much prefer it this way). But it's still always nice to have a hot bowl of soup for a light meal. This was another trial from my favorite website, Skinny Taste, of course. While the recipe on the website was to make it in the crock pot, I made it on the stove top instead. It certainly wasn't as good as any of the soup's that my Mother-in-Law makes, because she makes some delicious ones, I'll have to try some of her mom's soup recipes next, she's always talking about how good they are!

Crock Pot Minestrone Soup
Source: Skinny Taste

1/2 onion, chopped
1 cup carrots, chopped
1 celery stalk, chopped
2 garlic cloves, minced
1 (28 oz) can diced tomatoes
1 (15 oz) can white beans, drained, rinsed (cannellini or navy)
3 cups fat free chicken broth (or vegetable broth for vegetarians)
1 oz chunk of good Parmesan cheese rind
1 fresh rosemary sprig
2 bay leaves
2 tbsp chopped fresh basil
1/4 cup chopped fresh Italian parsley leaves
salt and fresh pepper
1 medium zucchini, chopped
2 cups chopped fresh or frozen (defrosted) spinach
2 cups cooked small pasta like ditalini or elbows (al dente)
extra parmesan cheese to top (extra pts)

Rinse and drain beans. Puree beans with 1 cup of the broth in a blender. In a crock pot, combine broth, tomatoes, pureed beans, carrots, celery, onion, garlic, herbs, Parmesan cheese rind, salt and pepper. Cover and cook on low for 6 to 8 hours. Forty minutes before the soup is done cooking, add zucchini and spinach. Cover and cook 30 more minutes. Add cooked pasta, cook 10 minutes more. Remove bay leaves, rosemary sprig, parmesan rind and season to taste with salt and black pepper. Top with extra parmesan cheese.

I wanted to blog this recipe for another reason though. This Sunday is not just the Super Bowl, but it's also the "Soup-er Bowl." I saw on a fellow bloggers website that she is hosting an online charity event called the Souper Bowl. For each blogger that posts a soup recipe and dedicates it to that special furry friend and sends it in to her she will donate $1 to the ASPCA. When I saw this quote on her blog, “He is your friend, your partner, your defender, your dog. You are his life, his love, his leader. He will be yours, faithful and true, to the last beat of his heart. You owe it to him to be worthy of such devotion.  Until there are none, rescue one (Unknown),” I was immediately pulled in, because all of this is so true of my little Rocky.

Therefore I am dedicating this post to my favorite little Giants fan (one with four legs and fur that is because I have some adorable nieces and nephews that are also Giants fans as well). He truly is my best friend. I never could have imagined how much I would love my very own fur baby, and how much of an impact he would have on our little family, and he IS part of our family.

It's fitting for this post to be on the Super Bowl as well, because it was last year on Super Bowl Sunday that we found out Rocky was going to be part of our family. I proudly showed his picture to everyone that would look last year on Super Bowl, and must have looked at those pictures a 1,000 times that day. Now here it is a year later and I couldn't be any happier with our little guy. He'll be rooting for the Giants on Sunday, here he is in his Giant's bandana (and he also has his matching Giants leash his Daddy bought for him). Go Giants!!!!