John is working at his office today so I am flying solo tonight for dinner. This pasta fagioli is based on a recipe by Giada De Laurentiis of Food Network fame. You can take a look at her recipe here. The changes I make are to add carrots and celery, use cannellini and kidney beans, sub out the chicken stock for half veg stock and half water, add Parmesan rinds to the stock, and sub in ditalini for macaroni. Although it is easy to make this soup vegetarian by leaving out the pancetta, the pancetta does give it an incredible depth of flavor. But if you do use the pancetta, do not use additional salt!
This turns out so delicious!! Plus I have an additional portion of it to freeze or serve with tomorrow night’s purchased sandwiches!