Anyone have a good kitchen-sink minestrone recipe?

This looks quite good, with a salad bonus:
http://www.sfgate.com/recipes/weeknightdish/article/Minestrone-soup-that-s-quick-with-lentil-salad-4831105.php

I submitted a minestrone recipe as well! Though I never heard of fennel being used n minestrone, mine uses celery, but you can skip it, especially if you have a lot of veggies. The more veggies you use, the tastier it will be! Also, an organic veggie bouillon cube or some Parmesan rinds build up a lot of flavor when you're short on veggies, and legumes and grains build up consistency and add nutritional value. Here, you can make mine with any vegetable you have (frozen too!) and even skip the herbs, as long as you have a onion/carrot stir fry base - the being vegetables everybody usually has n their fridges. http://food52.com/recipes/24039-via-fratta-s-tuscan-minestrone-soup
Feel free to ask any question about substitutions and whatnot! :)

If anyone is curious, I used this recipe and varied upon it wildly, and it was out-of-this-world delicious. http://food52.com/recipes/4656-minestrone-soup. The main variations were that I made the soffrito with onion, garlic (crushed), celery root, 4 slices of bacon & carrot. And then used 1 tsp each of the herbs, dried, and a handful of pearl barley. And chicken stock. And by then it was so flavorful that I skipped the Parmesan rind. I know, not the same recipe at all, but it really worked!

There are some minestrone recipes in the current contest for best autumn soup,food52.com/contests/344-your-best-recipe-for-autumn-soup
But I really think that you are spot on, thinking that what you need is a philosophy rather than a recipe. Yes, you can proceed without fennel or celery. Just saute some onions, some vegetables (green beans are good), add some tomatoes (canned are okay) and some broth, shell beans (again, canned are okay), maye some greens, and some pasta (or even rice). Minestrone is a no-recipe dish, maybe FOOD52 could do a "not recipes" post on it.

This minestrone doesn't have celery or fennel. I think as long as you have beans, tomatoes, pasta, herbs and vegetables, you can make minestrone out of whatever you want: http://food52.com/recipes/4656-minestrone-soup