"OK here goes. For 3 hearty bowls:

1 large onion
couple garlic cloves (or more selon ton goût)
2 large carrots
half pound streaky bacon
fresh or dried chilli (qty depends on strength!)
Knorr stock cubes (1 ham and 1 tomato is good, or vegetable)
Bay leaf or two
One tin Borlotti beans
Couple handfuls dried pasta (short fat tubes are good, but most shapes work) optional: dried porcini is good (soak first), tomato puree, slosh red wine.

Chop onions and garlic fry gently in olive oil. Cut rind off bacon, snip into small pieces (I use scissors) and add to onions. Add finely chopped or crumbled chilli (wash hands before going for a pee! ) Fry till bacon begins to turn - do not crisp or brown onions. Add chopped carrot, then couple pints of stock, bay leaf, and any of the optional ingredients (except wine), black pepper. Bring to boil then simmer five mins or so. Add borlotti beans (if you want, you can mash a tablespoon of the beans to thicken the soup) and the pasta. Bring back to boil (add wine here if you're going to) and then simmer 15-20 mins, partially covered. Add more liquid (water or whatever) if necessary. Serve when it seems ready, with crusty bread, or focaccia or whatever, grated cheddar on top is pretty irresistible.

Voila!

Another way it to use 250g dried cannellini beans (soak overnight), bacon as above or spicy cured sausage such as chorizo, replace half stock with one tin tomatoes. Beans need to simmer for about an hour to be cooked. You can add teaspoon cumin, also pimenton (paprika), make it more Spanish than Italian. You don't really need pasta with this version, but you can if you want. It's more of a cassoulet type thing."