Why does my minestrone soup end up with so little liquid? I have been attempting to make minestrone soup recently and I find that by the time I finish cooking it, the "liquid to bits" ratio is not particularly good and there is not enough liquid to really call the dish a soup.

Is it ok to reduce the cooking time? Or increase the amount of stock at the beginning? Or can you suggest another method of ensuring that at the end my soup has more liquid.
Are you "simmering" or "boiling" the soup?

When preparing soup, especially from stock, anything above a very slow simmer is going to reduce the soup, so you end up with something that's more concentrated but - obviously - also much thicker.

What you should be seeing is just a few bubbles escaping to the surface every minute or so.  That's it - that's all it takes to cook.  If you're seeing more bubbles than that, you've got the heat turned up too high and your liquid is evaporating.