Marsha's Version of "Olive Garden's" Fagioli Soup

This is a tweaked copy-cat version of a soup you can get at the Olive Garden. It is kind of cross between soup and chili with an Italian flare.

Marsha's Version of  "Olive Garden's" Pasta e Fagioli Soup

Ingredients:

• 1 lb ground beef
• 1 cup diced onion
• 1 cup julienned/grated carrot
• 1 stalk celery, chopped
• 2 garlic cloves, minced
• 2 (14 1/2 ounce) cans petite diced tomatoes with liquid
• 1 (15 ounce) can red kidney beans, drained and rinsed
• 1 (15 ounce) can great northern beans, drained and rinsed
• 2(+) cups water
• 1 (15 ounce) can tomato sauce
• 1 (12 ounce) can v-8 vegetable juice
• 1 Tbl. white vinegar
• 1 1/2 teaspoons salt
• 1 teaspoon oregano
• 1 teaspoon basil
• 1/2 teaspoon pepper
• 1/2 teaspoon thyme
• 1/2 pkg. ditali pasta
• Grated Parmesan cheese

Directions:

1. Brown beef in a large stock pot over medium heat and drain off fat.
2. Add onion, carrot, celery and garlic and saute for 10 minutes.
3. Add remaining ingredients, except pasta, and simmer for 1 hour.
4. About 40-50 minutes into simmer time, boil pasta to al dente in another pot, approximately ten minutes.  Drain.
5. Add pasta to the large pot of soup and simmer for 10 minutes.  Serve and top with grated cheese if desired.  Leftovers freeze well.

Marsha's Notes:

Add enough water to reach the consistency that you like. Some recipes call for adding the liquid that the beans come in, but I like to control the amount of salt that is added into things and prefer to use fresh water instead.  I also used two different kinds of red beans instead of the northern beans, so just use beans that you like.  The leftovers, I thought, were even better than the original soup because the flavors continued to blend together.  Yummy!  Not a huge onion or celery fan, I simply chopped those ingredients up as finely as I could manage and they were just fine.