Jamie Oliver's Minestrone Soup

This is Kelly Ripa's favorite soup. Her kids call it tiger soup because the carrots and red cabbage look like tiger stripes in their bowls, and it comes from a recipe for minestrone soup from The Naked Chef by Jamie Oliver. When Kelly makes this dish, she substitutes a 15-ounce can of chickpeas for the pasta.

Ingredients

10 large ripe plum tomatoes (or two 14 oz cans of tomatoes, drained)
3 medium carrots
2 medium leeks
5 ribs of celery
2 red onions
1 cabbage
1 Tbsp. olive oil
2 cloves garlic, finely sliced
1 heaped Tbsp. chopped fresh rosemary
3 cups ham, chicken, or vegetable stock
3 good handfuls of fresh basil, torn
6 oz spaghetti
Salt and freshly ground black pepper
Extra-virgin olive oil
Parmesan cheese, grated

Directions

Score the tomatoes and place briefly in boiling water. Then skin, seed and roughly dice. Peel or scrape the carrots, quarter lengthwise and chop. Remove the outer leaves of the leeks, quarter lengthwise, wash well and chop. Peel the celery with peeler to remove the stringy bits, then cut in half lengthwise and chop. Peel and chop the onions. When you are chopping all these vegetables, try to make them more or less the same size (around inch dice. Wash and roughly chop the cabbage.

Put the olive oil into a warmed thick-bottomed pan and cook the carrots, leeks, celery, onion, garlic and rosemary over medium heat until just tender (about 15 minutes). Add the chopped tomatoes and cook for 1-2 minutes. Add the stock, bring to the boil and simmer for 15 minutes, skimming if necessary. Add the cabbage, cover the pan and simmer for 10 minutes, then add the basil and the pasta, which will absorb the flavors of the soup. Simmer for a further 5 minutes or more. Taste and season. The soup should be quite thick, full in flavor, and the cabbage shouldn't be overcooked--you want to retain its deep color.

Serve with some good peppery extra-virgin olive oil and fresh Parmesan.