A month or so ago, at this point, I came across a recipe for slow cooker pasta e fagioli. That recipe can be found here. I’ve always loved pasta e fagioli, but had never tried to make it. The slow cooker sounded boring, and the recipe was for a soup. We love hearty, stick to your ribs sort of soup/stew when it’s cold outside so we beefed it up. With inspiration from the slow cooker version we added a pound of 80/20 ground beef. We swapped the beans, added carrots, swapped Rosemary for Thyme, added more pasta, and then boiled it on high to reduce it from a soup to a stew.

What’s the difference between a soup and a stew you might ask? Beats me I had no idea. I had to look it up. Basically, in a stew you can see the ingredients more readily. There tends to be less liquid that covers everything. Boiling this on high helps reduce the liquid and thickens this dish from a soup to a stew. The best part is that our 16 month old can’t get enough of it. She gobbles it up. Now that she has a few teeth we don’t have to mash it as much either. We usually break up the beans and let her go to town on everything else.

There’s a hidden secret that I learned built into this dish. If you add baking soda to the ground beef and let it sit 10-15 minutes (or while you chop of the veggies) then the ground beef will brown more evenly and release less fats. This is awesome because you don’t need to drain the ground beef in this soup. There’s very little fat released. It keeps everything down to one pan and makes it far easier to throw together.

I have never shot a soup before so this was actually a lot of fun. I played around a bit and came up with a few different scenes and angles to really test myself. I had a blast. In the end I am very happy with how these pictures turned out. Top that off with a fantastic stew, thanks to The Kitchn, for the inspiration.

Ingredients

• 2 15.5 oz cans of Great Northern Beans

• 1/4 teaspoon baking soda

• 1 lb 80/20 Ground Beef

• 4 oz panchetta

• 1 medium yellow onion

• 1/2 red bell pepper

• 2-3 large carrots

• 1 teaspoon minced garlic

• 4 cups water

• 1 28oz can crushed tomatoes

• 2 Tablespoons tomato paste

• 2 bay leaves

• 1 teaspoon dried Basil

• 1 teaspoon dried Oregano

• 1/2 teaspoon dried Rosemary

• 2 Parmesan rinds (a few inches by a few inches)

• 1 1/2 Cup dried Ditalini pasta

Instructions

1. Sprinkle the baking soda over the ground beef and let sit

2. Chop the onion, panchetta, garlic, and bell pepper and add to a large stock pot with a touch of olive oil. Cook on medium.

3. Julienne the carrots and add to the stock pot

4. Add the ground beef to the stock pot and brown. Increase the heat to medium high

5. Drain the beans and rinse

6. Once the ground beef is browned, and the onions translucent, add the water, beans, crushed tomato, tomato paste, bay leaves, basil, oregano, thyme, and Parmesan rinds and raise the temperature to high until boiling.

7. Boil the soup for 10 minutes. Add the Ditalini and boil for 13-15 minutes.

8. Remove the soup from the heat. Remove the Bay leaves and Parmesan rinds

9. Serve with some fresh baked olive oil bread topped with baked mozzarella and roasted tomatoes

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