I received this recipe from the Splendid Table, and it sounds really good. Has anyone made a similar soup?

"Deborah Madison's recipes are like old friends; they never fail you. You'll see what I mean when you do this classic from Provence. What looks like a long list of ingredients comes together fast and this soup begs to be made ahead, as does the pesto. Raid the farmers' market, make a big pot and stash it in the refrigerator. It's like having the south of France waiting for you when you get home in the evening."

A Farmers' Market Soup with Pasta and Pesto

Excerpted from Vegetable Soups from Deborah Madison's Kitchen. Copyright 2006 by Deborah Madison. Used be permission of Broadway Books, a division of Random House, Inc., New York. All Rights Reserved.

Makes about 10 cups

I love soupe au pistou, that bounteous collection of simmered summer vegetables and beans finished with pesto. But since I don't necessarily want to be cooking dried beans at the peak of summer's heat and canned beans are too soft, pasta takes their place.

This is just the kind of seasonal dish that shows how much flavor comes from the garden, for it's only that and not some difficult technique that accounts for its goodness. If I'm a bit loose on measurements, it's because sizes and varieties vary in true garden or farmers' market vegetables. I don't think there's really some exact formulation to follow. Even if I use all these vegetables every time, I never end up with the same soup twice.

Note: I blanch the basil in boiling water before working it into a sauce. The reason is because our basil is very mature and even tough, making the leaves difficult to pound or puree without bruising them. In Liguria, the home of pesto, basil is butter-soft and easy to work into a pesto. The plants are about the size we buy for transplanting.

3 tablespoons olive oil

3 leeks, white parts plus an inch of green, chopped and rinsed

Pinch of saffron threads

3 medium to large carrots, diced

3 yellow waxy boiling potatoes, chopped

3 medium turnips, peeled and diced

3 zucchini or other summer squash, sliced into 1/2-inch rounds or chunks

3/4 pound green beans, tipped, tailed, and cut into 1-inch lengths

2 large ripe tomatoes, any color, peeled, seeded, and diced

2 garlic cloves, minced

Sea salt and freshly ground pepper

2 quarts vegetable stock or water

1 cup dried pasta: pastini, orzo, broken spaghetti, or other small shapes

The Pesto:

3 cups loosely packed basil leaves, stems removed

1 plump garlic clove, peeled

3 tablespoons pine nuts

1/2 cup freshly grated Parmigiano-Reggiano

2 tablespoons grated Pecorino Romano

1/2 cup extra virgin olive oil

1. Warm the oil in a wide soup pot over medium heat. Add the leeks and saffron and cook gently until the leeks look glossy and translucent and the saffron begins to release its aroma, about 10 minutes. Add the vegetables, including the juice from the tomatoes, the garlic, and 1 1/2 teaspoons salt. Cook for 5 minutes more, then add the stock. Bring to a boil, lower the heat, and simmer until the vegetables are tender, 20 to 30 minutes.

2. Meanwhile, cook the pasta in salted boiling water, then drain and rinse under cold water to stop the cooking.

3. Make the pesto. Drop the basil into boiling water for a second or two, then drain, rinse, and pat dry. Mash the garlic in a mortar with 1/4 teaspoon salt and the pine nuts, then add the basil leaves a handful at a time. Grind them using a circular motion, until you have a fairly fine paste with very small flecks of leaves. Briefly work in the cheese, then stir in the olive. Taste for salt. Or, to use a food processor, process the garlic, salt, and pine nuts until finely chopped, then add the basil and olive oil and puree until smooth. Add the cheeses and process just to combine.

4. Add the pasta to the hot soup, then ladle the soup into bowls and stir a spoonful of pesto into each serving. Season with pepper. The soup need not be piping hot. In fact, it's better served a little more on the tepid side.

LYNNE'S TIPS

Saffron is the stigmas of the autumn crocus. Very small amounts of the tiny but pungent threads give extraordinary flavor and aroma to a dish. Use too much and the dish will be bitter. Color is an indicator of quality: the deeper the golden red hue the finer the quality. Buy saffron threads in the smallest amount possible and store in a cool, dark cupboard.

Substitute Swanson's tinned vegetable broth for stock if you don't want to make your own.

Make pesto in a food processor and it takes only a minute or two.

THOUGHTS FROM LYNNE

A good trick to remember when a soup recipe calls for pasta is to cook it separately, as Deborah calls for in this dish, and add it to the soup right before serving. This way the pasta will be al dente rather than overcooked and mushy.