Tuscan Bean and Sundried Tomato Soup

A friend of mine recently posted something on Facebook about having a belly full of homemade bean soup and for some reason that just struck me as being exactly what I wanted--a belly full of homemade bean soup. So I searched the Internets and compiled some recipes and came up with this, which ended up being really tasty and hearty, and made my belly quite happy :)

Ingredients (makes 4 generous servings):
-2 cups of small pasta shells
-1 white onion, chopped
-6 cloves garlic, sliced
~2 tsp fresh rosemary
~1/2 tsp red pepper flakes
-1 cup julienned sun-dried tomatoes in oil, drained
-2 carrots, chopped
-1 can kidney beans
-1 can navy beans
~1 T EVOO
-salt and pepper to taste
-2 C water

Steps:
1. Cook pasta al dente.
2. While pasta is cooking, in a LARGE pot or wok, saute EVOO with onion, garlic, rosemary, and red pepper flakes for about 5 minutes.
3. Add 2 cups of water, sun-dried tomatoes, carrots, and beans.
4. Bring to a boil, then reduce heat and simmer for about 10 minutes, stirring occasionally.

5. Puree 2/3 of vegetable mixture in a blender or food processor.
6. Add pureed soup to the remaining soup mixture in large pan. Stir in pasta. (Add some more water if soup is too thick.)

7. Garnish if you like...we garnished ours with chives and some mozzarella.