Top Secret Recipes Version of Olive Garden

Top Secret Recipes Version of Olive Garden
Pasta E Fagioli
One of the most popular and hard-to-pronounce items on the Olive Garden menu is found in the soup column. But it’s more like a thick chili than a soup, really, with all those beans and veggies and ground beef in there. The reduced-fat grams in this clone are especially important when we consider that this dish makes an excellent meal by itself, and you may want to eat more than the 1 1/2cups serving size measured for the nutritional stats.
We’ll keep the added fat to a minimum by sautéing the veggies in what little fat is not drained off from browning the super-lean ground beef. The soup will fill your mouth with so much flavor that it won’t matter that we don’t add any additional fat. You’ll have a hard time distinguishing between this version and the original. Try it out and you’ll see what I mean.
This recipe makes about eight 1 ½-cup servings so if you can’t eat it all within a few days, it freezes well.
1 pound super-lean ground beef (7% fat)
1 small onion, diced (1 cup)
1 large carrot, julienned (1 cup)
3 stalks celery, chopped (1 cup)
2 cloves garlic, minced
2 14½-ounce cans diced tomatoes
1 15-ounce can red kidney beans
(with liquid)
1 15-ounce can great northern beans
(with liquid)
1 15-ounce can tomato sauce
1 12-ounce can V-8 juice
1 tablespoon white vinegar
1½ teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon dried oregano
1 teaspoon dried basil
½ teaspoon pepper
½ teaspoon dried thyme
½ pound (½ package) ditali pasta
Brown the ground beef in a very large saucepan or soup pot over medium heat. Drain off the fat.
Add onion, carrot, celery and garlic and simmer for 10 minutes.
Add the remaining ingredients, except the pasta, and simmer for 1 hour.
After 50 minutes into the simmer time, cook pasta in 1½ to 2 quarts of boiling water over high heat. Cook for 10 minutes or until pasta is al dente or slightly tough. Drain.
Add the pasta to the large pot of soup. Simmer for 5 minutes and serve.
Serves 8 as an appetizer
TIBITS
Ditali pasta is a small 1/4 –inch tubes of pasta, short, little hollow cylinders. The may also go by the name salad-roni.
Nutritional Facts -- per serving size of 1½ cups
Calories (est )Lite = 312Original =416
Fat (est.)Lite = 4 gramsOriginal = 17.5 grams
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How Sherry cooked it. –
I was short on time and not home to start it so, at my request, Christie, while she was browning the meat, opened the cans (red kidney beans, great northern beans, and diced tomatoes) and dumped the ingredients in large stock pan (I doubled the recipe.) I had already prepared the carrots, celery and onion, so she dumped them in also and started the pot to simmer. I came home within 15 minutes and added everything except tomato sauce, hamburger and pasta. Brought soup to boil, cut back to a simmer. Took out Wendy’s portion and added meat to large pot. Simmered about 45 minutes. Cooked pasta (could not find ditali pasta—used penne). Next time – I would like to eliminate the pasta (Larry doesn’t need the extra carbs) and possibly the meat. I did not add any tomato sauce but would do so next time if I used pasta.
Have fun!
Pozole
From the kitchen of: LINDA SAENZ
INGREDIENTS
1-2 lbs pork shoulder2 cloves of garlic, salt to taste2 cans hominy drained2 tablespoons chili powder1 tablespoon oil2 teaspoons cumin
2 teaspoons oregano
INSTRUCTIONS
Cut pork shoulder into 1 inch bite size pieces. Grind spices and garlic in food processor, add chili powder with a little bit of water to make a paste. Put the meat and spices into a big pot. Add oregano. Add about 5 cups of water, add salt. Cook for a couple of hours until the meat is tender . Add hominy about 20 minutes before the 2 hours is up.