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>>>> "What a good idea! We seem to always have half a jar of spaghetti sauce. The pasta and the sauce never come out even... does it make a difference between the white beans and the kidney beans?" <<<<

Hello again, TAC.

I discovered something today. The strong and boringly tomato taste of this watered down spaghetti sauce was getting on my nerves, so I decided to add a tiny bit of shredded cabbage, and then boil it all down a bit, to see if it would help.

But when I was putting away the head of cabbage, I found a pint of pork drippings from a pork roast last weekend. Everyone here likes chicken gravy, so I almost never have extra chicken stock on hand, but this pork "gelatin" was just sitting there, aging away.

So I skimmed off the half inch of solidified fat and dumped the rest of it in the soup pot, and it had a wonderfully GOOD impact on that strong tomato, but without being so strong that it took away the Italian spices.

Interestingly, when I did a quick search on "pork stock" at google, one woman said that a very old recipe of her mother's for a tomato soup specifically calls for PORK stock -- so the combo is probably well time tested.

Also in one bowl I added about half a dozen pepperoni slices cut in half, and the result tasted good. I'd never throw pepperoni in the soup pot, cause the broth might get too peppery and the pepperoni too leathery, but it was okay just pouring soup over them in one bowl.

Also both types of beans tasted better after boiling for about 15 minutes today. Next year some time I'm going to try experimenting around with the spaghetti sauces and ITALIAN SAUSAGES, and see what kind of soup I can create.

However, it's ALMOST Thanksgiving, and time to start clearing out the fridge, make room for holiday foods. ALREADY.