Pasta Fagoli Soup

I love, love, love the pasta fagoli soup at Olive Garden. It's my favorite thing to eat there! Jill gave me this recipe and said it was the same one as Olive Gardens....I was a little skeptical, but thought I'd try it.

Last night being Monday and this being "The Bachelor" season, I'm back to getting together with my "Monday Night Girls" to eat, watch the show and hang out. Everyone came to my house last night, so I threw this soup in the crockpot yesterday morning and we had it last night.

Oh.My.Word. EXACTLY like Olive Gardens! It was delish! I can't wait to eat the leftovers for lunch today-it was that good.

Here's the recipe:

1 lb ground beef, browned and drained
1/2 large red onion, chopped
1 C carrots, chopped
2 celery stalks, sliced
2 cans (14. oz) diced tomatoes (and juice)
1 can kidney beans, drained
1 can white beans, drained
4 C beef brother
1 jar (16.5 oz) spaghetti sauce
2 tsp oregano
1/2 tsp salt
1/4 tsp black pepper
1/2 C dry pasta, to add at the end of the cooking time

Use your biggest crockpot or cut the recipe in half, it makes a lot.

Brown meat and drain well. Let cool a bit.

Chop up veggies. Add to empty crock pot. Drain and rinse the beans and add to crock pot. Add the whole cans of tomatoes and pasta sauce. Add the beef broth, salt, pepper and oregano. Stir in meat.
Cover and cook on low for 8 hours or high for 4.
When vegetable are tender, stir in the half cup of dry pasta (I used little mini-lasagna noodles).
Cover and cook for another hour on low or until the pasta is tender.
Serve with parmesan cheese.
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I cut up all my veggies the night before, so all I had to do yesterday morning was brown my beef and dump it all in the crock pot. I also cooked my pasta on the stove and then just added it to the soup before serving. And Jill said she made hers on the stove, verses all day in the crock pot and it tasted the same.

Way easy and way good. My kind of meal!