The potatoes do have to soak before you bake them so there is a 30 minute wait and the 30 minute cooking time makes less very less convenient than their frozen counterparts but they’re delicious and taste and feel just like they were fried without all the extra fat and oil needed to fry. They also take only 2-3 minutes of active work, mostly just chopping up a potato.
Minestrone is glorified vegetable soup. It’s usually made with whatever is in season and often contains pasta or rice and always has beans in it. I’m not a really big of this soup in restaurants as it’s usually served very thin with a ton of pasta and not much in the way of vegetables and also usually has a beef base which I don’t like. I made mine with vegetable stock but feel free to make yours with chicken or beef if you have that instead. This recipe makes about 8 servings but could be easily scaled down.