Italian Minestrone Soup

This is by far the best and most filling soup I've had in a long time, and I'm a soup fan. We almost always have a pot of homemade soup in the fridge and I'm thinking this one will quickly become the favorite. It's a very thick soup - we added a can of tomato soup - and we also (of course!) used vegetable broth instead of beef broth. It's absolutely perfect with homemade bread...and that's a filling dinner. It's also four points per serving, so it's also points friendly. Yay.

Ingredients:
1 med. onion, chopped
1/4 c. celery leaves, chopped
2 cloves garlic, minced
Olive oil
1 c. chopped carrot
1 c. chopped celery
1 (28 oz.) can tomatoes with liquid
1 (8 oz.) can tomato sauce
2 c. beef stock or broth
1 c. red wine
1 zucchini, sliced
1 1/2 c. chopped cabbage
1 (14-16 oz.) can white beans or pinto or kidney beans
1 c. elbow macaroni
Water or V-8 juice
Pepper
2 bay leaves
1 tsp. oregano

Instructions:
Saute onion, garlic and celery leaves in olive oil until
onions are clear, 5 to 10 minutes. Add chopped carrots,
celery, tomatoes, tomato sauce, beef stock, wine, bay
leaves, oregano and pepper. Simmer until carrots are
tender, 10 to 15 minutes. Add zucchini and cabbage and
simmer until they are tender. You may need to add 1 to 2
cups more water or V-8 juice to get desired consistency.
Add beans and macaroni and cook until tender. Serve with
Parmesan cheese. You can vary this recipe with other beans,
vegetables or rice.

We didn't use Parmesan cheese.

Cabbage Crockpot Dinner

Cabbage (both fresh and sauerkraut) is big in Bulgaria and though it's allegedly easy to cook, I've never been able to replicate my mom's cabbage dishes. Then I found this recipe that I've adapted for my own use. The original recipe has potatoes, which we didn't like in combination with cabbage, so I've skipped them since.

Ingredients:
For 1.5 quart/1.4 liter crockpot

4 cups* (about 470 g) cut/shredded cabbage
1 medium onion, chopped
1 3/4 teaspoons salt**
1/4 teaspoon pepper
5 oz (150 ml) broth
1 pound (450 g) fully cooked sausage***, cut into serving size pieces

Edited to add: the sausage is of this type, sans the grill marks :).

* About 3 cups, or enough to fill a 1.5 qt crockpot to the brim (cabbage cooks down).
** Cabbage takes in spices very well, and it's really easy to make it poisonously salty! So try it with this amount of salt first and then decide if you need more.
*** It seems that the sausage leaks some of its oil and spices onto the cabbage, so if you substitute tofu, it might be a bit bland.

Directions:

Cut cabbage. Chop onion.
Put cabbage and onion into crockpot.
Arrange pieces of sausage on top.
Stir spices into broth. Pour on top of the cabbage.
Cover and cook on low until cabbage is tender, about 6 hours.

Makes about 3 servings.