Vegetable Soup with Pasta and Kale

When the hubby's away, I eat stuff like quinoa. Brown rice. Kale. Salsa with almost every meal. This soup. You know, those things you devour eat that your significant other won't touch with a ten-foot pole. I'm one of those people that can eat the same thing for a couple days in a row, so I make big batches of meals and feed on them for the rest of the week. Not only does this mean taking a couple nights off from cooking, it also means a couple of days of not running the dishwasher. Which means liberation from the daily dishwasher emptying. Ah, vacation.

Of course, after a couple of days of being alone, I'm ready for the hubby to come home. So are the dogs.

Ingredients:

1 tbsp olive oil
1 onion, chopped
3 cloves garlic, minced
1 cup carrots, chopped
1 cup celery, chopped
1 cup zucchini, chopped
8 cups chicken broth ( I used homemade, which helps keeps the sodium level of the soup down)
1- 14 oz canned diced tomatoes
1 tsp salt
1 tsp dried basil
1 tsp dried oregano
1 tsp dried thyme
1/2 tsp crushed red pepper
1/2 tsp pepper
2 bay leaves
3 cups kale, chopped
1 cup whole wheat pasta
Parmesan cheese (for topping)

Directions:

1. Heat olive oil in a large stockpot over medium-high heat. Add onion, garlic, carrot, and celery. Saute 5 minutes, or until tender. Add zucchini to the pan, cook another 5 minutes.
2. Add chicken broth through bay leaves to the pot. Reduce heat, and simmer for 20 minutes.
3. Remove bay leaves from pot, and discard. Add kale and pasta to the pot, simmer 9-11 minutes or until pasta is tender.
4. Ladle soup into an individual serving bowl, and top with parmesan cheese. Serve immediately.