Soupe au Pistou -- A classic from Southern France

This soup really surprised me. It is everything French cuisine claims to be -- refined and elegant. While it involves a large number of ingredients, the process is pretty straight-forward.

Vegetarian versions of the soup simply leave out the meat. Also traditionally salt pork is used and less of it but this is what I could do here and I don't see why pork belly would not be ok.

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Recipe (serves 6 comfortably)
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250 g pork belly (optional)
150g soaked red beans (more or less is ok)
4 carrots
2 potatoes
1 onion
1 leek
250g fine green beans (optional)
250g green beans
2 zucchini
150g dry pasta
gruyere or parmesan type cheeses (optional but recommended)
3.5 liters of water (3 quarts plus a pint, or 14 cups)
350g tomatoes
salt and pepper to taste.
(Pistou)
20g basil
4 cloves of garlic
enough olive oil
salt and pepper to taste.

Chop the meat and add directly to the water with the soaked beans. While this comes to a boil, peel and chop the carrots, onion and leeks and add.

Boil for 10 minutes, then add the peeled and chopped potato.

Boil for another 30 minutes then remove a few pieces of the potato and set aside

Boil for another hour. In the mean time, chop your green and fine beans, and your zucchini. Seed and chop the tomatoes and set them aside separately.

Add the beans, pasta, and zucchini.

Boil for another 15 minutes. During this time, make your pistou. You can do this in a mortar and pestle or a food processor (or a blender or hand blender as I did): grind the garlic with a little olive oil then add the basil and more olive oil until it is a good consistency. Add the now-cooled potato pieces.

Take the soup off the heat. Add the pesto and tomatoes. Let sit covered for half an hour. Enjoy!

Recipe inspiration came from:
https://www.papillesetpupilles.fr/202...
https://www.marmiton.org/recettes/rec...