“Everything you see I owe to pasta.”
SOPHIA LOREN
Hi there,
Last week we had a winter storm that dumped a lot of snow over the course of two days. On “snow days” my thoughts always run to a nice warm homemade pot of soup. I started to go through my pantry to get inspired and discovered I had a lot of canned chickpeas and a lot of ditalini. Earlier that morning I read a recipe in the NYT Cooking column for Pasta and Ceci. I decided that this would be a delicious dinner and fun recipe to customize. I also like that this is a one pot soup, no other clean up required. What follows is my version of Colu Henry’s recipe.
Ingredients
- 3 tablespoons of olive oil
- 3 chopped leeks
- 1 small container of mirepoix
- 3 tablespoons of garlic paste
- 2 teaspoons of chopped fresh rosemary
- 2 sprigs of thyme
- 1/2 tsp of red-pepper flakes
- salt and Aleppo pepper to taste
- 1 can of san Marzano whole tomatoes
- 1 can of chickpeas, drained
- 1 cup of ditalini
- 1 parmesan rind
- pecorino romano for serving
Directions
- add olive to a deep pot
- saute mirepoix, leeks and garlic
- then add part rind along with rosemary, thyme and pepper flakes
- sauté the above together until thoroughly cooked
- then add canned tomatoes and break up with your fork and cook for 10 minutes
- take 1/4 of the chickpeas and mash them
- add mashed and whole chickpeas to the pot and cook for another 10 minutes
- add 3 cups of water and bring to a boil
- add ditalini to the pot and cook al dente
- remove parm rind and thyme sprigs and serve with pecorino
Special Note: The NYT recipe suggested adding to the soup 4 cups of chopped escarole, kale or radicchio which I am sure would have been delicious but I didn’t have any of those in the larder.
Ciao, Bernadette❤️💕
27 responses to “PASTA E CECI ALLA ROMANO”
This looks fabulous. I discovered garlic in a tube when I had thumb surgeries, and sought out shortcuts. It’s super good!
Very Tasty!! Love it when you can make something out of pantry-finds! Good one Bernadette 🙂
Looks sooo yummy! Sophia Loren <3
It’s been really cold here, so this looks really inviting!
Hope you enjoy. You can add meat to this dish if you want to,
Never!
Oh yes pasta!!!!! This looks delicious! I would add hot Italian sausage to mine. Thanks for the recipe.
That would a wonderful addition😊
OM …. G! this is our mom’s favorite dish and yours looks amazing! Love all the ingredients in your recipe. thanks so much!
If you have beans and pasta in your pantry, you can always count on a good meal and yours sounds terrific.
Thanks for taking the time to read and comment.
Sounds divine, especially endorsed by Sophia Loren!
Thanks for reading and commenting.
Your pasta looks delicious, especially with that glass of wine sitting next to it! I’d take this on a snow day any time!
Thanks for taking the time to read and comment.
Hi Bernadette, I have a lot of chickpeas on hand so I am really pleased to have this recipe.
It is a great comfort food dinner
This looks scrumptious! I would definitely make this a weekend dinner thing. Thanks for sharing this recipe Bernadette!! 🙂 Can’t wait to give it a try.
You are most welcome.
I have been digging around in my pantry also. I found several cans of chick peas also. I used three cans in 3 been salad.that I canned in half pints. I still have more to use up. You gave me an idea to use another one up. Thanks for sharing.
It is a great pantry dish. I hope you enjoy it. Have a great weekend.
HI Bernadette, I’m not sure why this older post popped up, but I’m glad it did. I love soup recipes.
Love this.. I do like a pantry dish… Plus ditalili, delicious sounding dish… 😀 x
Hi Bernadette, I had to look up what mirepoix is. Do you make it or buy it?
Hi Robbie, Fortunately for me this is a common mix found already prepared in our grocery stores in the fresh salad and vegetable department. It is a bit of work to prepare but if you have a food processor, the preparation goes quicker. Have a boootiful day🎃
this looks very warming and filling. we are having a 35C day today so very cool dishes are the way to go! Such weird weather all over the world. I know it’s almost summer but we don’t normally get this hot so early in the season. Snow?! yes please.
You are right Sherry, the weather worldwide is very strange. We are about 20 degrees colder today than normal. And it has been this way for several days. Stay cool my friend.