Pasta e Fagioli with Simple Green Salad

Soup, salad, and bread. Is this the Olive Garden? Not exactly but it was pretty tasty (Full disclosure: I am not ashamed to admit, I love Olive Garden. Its one of my favorite chains.) Anyway for dinner Monday night, I went fairly simple with a soup that I put together on Sunday afternoon, served with a simple green salad and some tasty french bread. The soup is actually from a package - one of those bagged numbers in the same section as the dried beans that comes with a spice packet and recipe on the back. All I had to do was add some other components: chopped onion, celery, carrots, and garlic; a can of tomatoes; broth and water. The spice packet had a bunch of dried Italian spices plus dehydrated spinach. It was obviously simple to use but it really wouldn't have been much harder to add my own spices. It was nice to get all the different kinds of beans in one bag and not have to buy all of them. My mom makes a really good lentil soup from a package like this and she usually adds italian sausage to it to make it even heartier. That would have worked well here too. The beans and small noodles, plus a lot of veggies and good seasoning, was a nice, hearty combination that was filling and comforting.

For the salad, I stayed very simple also and just mixed a half a chopped avocado with some red leaf lettuce and romaine that I had in the crisper. I used leftover caesar dressing from Ina Garten's recipe that I already had in the fridge from another day. Here is the recipe for that:

1 extra-large egg yolk at room temperature*
2 teaspoons Dijon mustard
2 large cloves garlic, chopped
8 to 10 anchovy fillets (optional)
1/2 cup freshly squeezed lemon juice (3 lemons)
2 teaspoons kosher salt
1/2 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
1 1/2 cups good mild olive oil
1/2 cup freshly grated Parmesan cheese

Place the egg yolks, mustard, garlic, anchovies, lemon juice, salt, and pepper into the bowl of a food processor fitted with a steel blade. Process until smooth. With the food processor running, slowly pour the olive oil through the feed tube (as though you were making mayonnaise), until thick. Add the grated Parmesan cheese and pulse 3 times.

I usually cut this recipe in half when I make it for just "every day" use, i.e. not for a big dinner party or anything. It makes a lot. It is a pretty awesome recipe though - has a ton of flavor, very lemony and creamy.

*I actually make it with mayo now instead of the egg yolk (one T of mayo in place of the egg yolk). That way I am comfortable with it keeping in the fridge for a week or so without going bad on me.

I think the key, at least for me, to having success with eating at home regularly is to usually rely on menus that are fairly simple, and to not be afraid to use things like a soup mix, rather than making everything from scratch. So... day one, done. Tonight its pad thai (from a box mix, I am afraid... but it is a really good box.) Stay tuned, reader(s). All three of you.