Italian Garden Veggie Minestrone

I loooove this one. It's my kind of comfort food. Who needs chicken friend steak and mashed potatoes when you can have this (and not the added inches to your waistline!)! Need I mention it's a slow cooker recipe! Yup, definitely a favorite...

Ingredients:

• 2 chicken breasts
  
• 1/2 onion, chopped
• 1-2 cloves garlic, minced
• 1 zucchini, chopped
• 1 can mushrooms OR 8 oz. fresh mushrooms, sliced
• 1/2 yellow squash, chopped
• 28 oz. can diced tomatoes
• 2-3 c. chicken broth
• 1 c. bell peppers, chopped
• 1 bay leaf
• Italian Seasoning, to taste
• Dried Basil, to taste
• Parmesan cheese

Directions:
1. Place all ingredients except dried herbs and cheese in crock pot; cook on low for 6 hours.
2. Stir in dried herbs into pot for last 15-20 minutes.
3. Cook pasta in separate pot. The point of this is for leftover purposes. You can cook pasta with the crockpot, but they may end up too soft or too hard upon serving. But if you let the pasta sit overnight inside the soup, they expand and you end up with goulash.
3. Serve; add pasta to each bowl and top with Parmesan.


VERSION 1.3

PS- this is minestrone people, so keep that in mind when you cook and add the pasta. However, if you're not concerned with the diet, then you could morph this into a pasta dish. Just omit the broth and make it into a sauce and serve on top of pasta. You may want to add some bouillon to the sauce; taste test it first.

Time Saver: as you cook the pasta, make enough for tonight and for tomorrow's pasta bake.