Beef, Bean, and Pasta Soup

I just recently found Rachael Ray's show Week in a Day and this recipe looked fantastic...Hearty and Healthy 3 Bean Minestrone but my husband requested I add some meat to the soup.   So decided to add 1 lb of 92% lean ground beef to the recipe which made me think of Olive Garden's® Paste E Fagioli (which I absolutely LOVE.  quite remarkable since I'm not a big soup person).

Wow, what a big cooking day for me!!  3 out of 4 burners were used as was the oven!!

Since I (somehow) only have one sheet pan - a situation that I plan to remedy very soon - I started roasting the 24 tomatoes at 10 am on my one pan.

I set the oven to 500 and had my coffee while I waited for it to pre-heat and drained 2 15oz-can each red kidney, garbanzo and cannelini beans and put them in a bowl.  I then arranged 24 the tomatoes and 24-odd cloves of garlic on the pan and drizzled the whole thing with extra virgin olive oil.

I roasted the tomatoes for 40 minutes (my oven is a little off with the temperature, so I always add time to recipes).  While they were roasting I emptied 8 cups (2 boxes) of chicken stock into a stock pot on my front right burner (1).  I tied together a couple sprigs of thyme, rosemary, and parsely and tossed them into the pot. I followed that with 1 onion, peeled and quartered, 2 stalks of celery (halved), and 2 carrots (halved), two dried bay leaves, and the rinds of two chunks of parmesan cheese; I simmered the stock for 1 hour.

I added some extra virgin olive oil to a skillet on my front right burner (2)  and then added 6 slices of prosciutto and 1/2 of a medium-large onion and cooked it until the onion was just translucent.
I moved the onion-prosciutto mixture to my crockpot base and put my 1 lb of 92% lean ground beef to the skillet; cooking it until it was just brown and turned the burner off.

I decided to use Barilla's® Ditalini pasta for the soup, so I boiled 4 qts of water on my back left burner (3) and cooked the little tubes for 10 minutes. While the pasta was cooking I poured the beans on top of the prosciutto-onion mixture. Next I added 2 carrots and 2 stalks of celery, cut into slices diagonally to the crock.  I turned the pasta off and drizzled some extra virgin olive oil over the top and stirred...to keep the pasta separated.  By this point the aroma from the stock is amazing.

At this point I realized that my 4 qt crockpot wouldn't hold the recipe which I foolishly decided to to double on my first try.  So I rescue the stock pot from the sink and do my best to split the broth, vegetables, and beans between the crock pot and the stockpot.  I remove the now roasted tomatoes from the oven - noting that next time I don't need as much olive oil. I split the pasta, beef, and roasted tomato/garlic between the two pots.  Then I realized I was supposed to remove the skins from the tomatoes before adding them to the pot....lucky for me all the tomatoes are still on top :)

After removing the skins I stir both pots, making sure to bring the beans up from the bottom and set them to simmer for 1 hour. (Turned the crock pot onto it's "Low/8 hr" setting.)

Looking back at the original recipe, I wasn't supposed to add the pasta to the soup pot and then cook...I was supposed to add the pasta to the soup when I serve it.  So it was ok for tonight's meal, but will probably be beyond mushy tomorrow.

Disappointing result: the soup, while filling, had little to no flavor :(  Maybe I should have sprinkled salt and pepper on the tomatoes before roasting.

So my lesson from this meal is whenever trying something new, don't double it :)  And I discovered that I need a REAL roasting pan and a 8+ quart stockpot.