An All Season Minestrone

This is the latest shipment from South Central Farms. There is such a varying assortment of food including a couple of grapefruit. Another huge head of romaine has appeared as well, so salad has not disappeared from my diet. One new item that has appeared was a nice bunch of Italian parsley.

While searching for dishes to make that would include parsley, I found this contest winning recipe on Food52 and was sold. Not only did it use the parsley but it used all sorts of of other veggies that I had.

When I think of minestrone, I think of cold brisk air and the hearty tomato based soup warming me up. I decided that making one last wintry soup, before it gets really warm, was called for, especially since we've had a little bit of rain.
The following recipe is a modified version of the Food52 version. I will say that there are endless possibilities of changing this recipe and would all still end up with the same delicious result. I named it the All Season Minestrone because it uses vegetables from all four seasons.

Smoky Minestrone with Tortellini and Parsley Pesto

3 tablespoons of olive oil

2 slices of bacon chopped into small pieces 

5 spring onions peeled and chopped

2 large cloves of garlic minced

8 medium sized carrots (I used the whole bunch)

1 zucchini + 1 little zucchini chopped

1 potato peeled and chopped

4 cups vegetable or chicken stock

1 15oz can of cooked chickpeas

1 28oz can of peeled tomatoes with juice

salt

one bunch of kale chopped fine (this is maybe about 3 cups)

9 oz of dried tortellini

1. Heat 1 tablespoon of the olive oil in a large pot over medium heat. Add the bacon pieces and cook for a couple of minutes, until they start to brown.
2. Add 2 more tablespoons of oil along with the onions and garlic. Continue to cook stirring occasionally, over medium heat until softened. 
3. Add the chopped carrots, zucchini, potato and stir around for a minute or two.
4.  Add the stock, the chickpeas, and then the tomatoes, crushing them with your hands as you go. Add a little salt if needed. Bring the soup to a boil then reduce heat to a simmer and cook 30-40 minutes until the potatoes are just tender.
5. Add the kale and the tortellini and continue to cook over a simmer until both are tender and cooked through. Serve garnished with a spoonful of pesto, a few drops of aged balsamic vinegar, and some Parmesan cheese.

Parsley Pesto
whole bunch of parsley
1 tablespoon of almonds
1 tablespoon of pepitas
3 garlic cloves
2 tablespoons of Parmesan
3ish tablespoons of olive oil

1.  Everything was thrown into a food processor and blended together. 

 No wonder this won a prize, this is so good. This smelled so good from the start that I could have just eaten the cooked onions and garlic with the semi raw veggies as it was. It was easy to make, used a ton of vegetables, and I cannot stress enough how good this tasted. Especially with the parsley pesto, it added just a little bit of extra freshness to all the other wonderful flavors. And I don't know if you've ever added balsamic vinegar to minestrone but it is delicious and gives a nice acidic flavor.

Minestrone with parsley pesto

 Other Posts You Might Like
Split Pea Soup With Mixed Greens
Delicious Black Bean Chili

Stampeding Herd of Cauliflower Soup

It has been super cold lately, and when I say cold I mean below 50, which is cold for Californians. What better way to spend a cool Saturday night than cooking with neighbors. The weather, further contributing to the soup kick I've been on, we made Cauliflower Soup with Stilton and Walnuts. We combined various recipes but this is the one that inspired the meal.
Also we dubbed it Stampeding Heard of Buffalo Soup because there were people coming up and down the outside stairs, and they sounded like they were either being chased by buffalo or maybe they were buffalo themselves.  I am going to call it by its hybrid name

Stampeding Herd Of Cauliflower Soup

  One medium head of Cauliflower cut into florets

1/4 cup of butter

One onion diced

About a quarter of a leek chopped

one diced turnip

Full Container of Vegetable Broth

2 Cups of Milk
3 Tablespoons of Walnuts plus more for garnish
Salt and Pepper
Smoked Paprika
3 oz crumbled Stilton

Melt the butter in a large pot, when it starts to foam add cauliflower, onion, leek, and turnip. Let the vegetables start to brown a little, and or until the onions start to become translucent. Add the broth and let come to a boil, then lower heat and let simmer until the cauliflower is soft. Add the milk and walnuts and cover. Stir periodically until the soup is thickened and the vegetables have fallen apart. 

Soup being Pureed

Remove from heat and in batches add to your blender or food processor and puree. Put pureed soup back into pot on low heat season with salt and pepper, a little paprika, and the crumbled Stilton. When the cheese has melted into the soup, it is ready to be devoured. Garnish with toasted walnuts and smoked paprika.

The Stampeded Soup

 The Cauliflower while looking picturesque with all of its foliage, was a little bit on the smallish side. We ended up using another half of cauliflower, to make up a medium sized head. 

Aside from that this was a great soup. While it was cooking, every few minutes, someone would respond how good it smelled, and it did. The Stilton could be tasted at the end of each spoonful. I also really enjoyed the walnuts as well, giving it a richer flavor. There was discussion of perhaps next time making Stilton Croutons and adding them instead of melting the cheese. It's a great meal to cause a stampede of your own.


Other Posts You Might find interesting
Easy Side    Labor Day Stew

Split Pea Soup with Mixed Greens

Leafy Green Mix

The Weather has turned cool and rainy again and all I've wanted to do is make warm food. I found this recipe for Split Pea Soup with Greens and nothing is better on a rainy night than a bowl of split pea. This recipe calls for 3 to 4 cups of kale. I tried to use a majority if not all the leafy greens that were hanging out in the refrigerator, but mostly some red mustard, curly mustard, and Siberian kale.

The Finished Product

While I liked the outcome of this soup it was a little thinner than what i normally like for split pea. It had a nice smoky flavor from the sausage and combined with the various greens it had a little spicy kick. The greens are a good addition to the soup, giving a crunch. A perfect meal to enjoy while watching the soupy weather. 

Other Post you might like  

Cooking in a Green Year     Thankful For Greens And Vegetables

Cooking In A Green Year

Broccoli

 A new year is upon us and I am excited to eat lots of leafy greens. I love Christmas and everything that it brings but, I am happy to have the time to cook again.  The above photo is the most recent box, all those greens are chasing away memories of cookies, bacon wrapped dates, and the never ending parade of cheeses paired with something cured or pickled.
It has been uncharacteristically cold and rainy here  lately, and as a result I've been on a soup kick. I first made Broccoli Soup from this amazing looking Broccoli.  I have learned that Broccoli is one of the first things I need to use from the box because it goes bad really fast. I combined two recipes to make the Broccoli Soup. Using the Joy of Cooking: 75th Anniversary Edition - 2006 and a recipe from Food & Wine. I overcooked the broccoli and it didn't come out the prettiest of colors but it tasted good.

A week later I made kale soup testing out a new Christmas gift

Forgotten Skills of Cooking: The Time-Honored Ways are the Best - Over 700 Recipes Show You Why
I am completely obsessed with this book. I am already making a mental list of what I want to make. And if I feel like a challenge it has sections on preserving and how to build your own smoker, out of a metal trashcan. I wonder if smoking vegetables would work. The soup was easy, simple, and delicious. It has potato in it, which gives it a thicker consistency and I managed to not let the greens overcook.

We enjoyed both soups with a slice of bread, or my favorite popovers.

Red Kale

Overall I think both the soups, while using two different vegetables, were really similar. If the weather keeps up perhaps I will start turning other greens into soup. Or some other delicious dinner to be had. All I know is that I am glad to be cooking in this new year and await the surprises that come in the new vegetable box

Broccoli Soup

Kale soup

Delicious Black Bean Chili

This is the latest box as of November 7th

I found this recipe a couple of weeks ago and knew as soon as a new box came I would be making it. As the temperature has slowly dropped  I have been wanting to make chili.

The kale and butternut cut up.

I loved that this one included butternut squash and greens which I would not normally think of  putting with chili. I used kale instead of chard and I substituted one of the cans of black beans with a can of Cuban Style Black Beans from Trader Joe's. As I started to cook I realized I didn't have chili powder, so I put in a tablespoon of cayenne and a tablespoon of paprika. So there might have been a little bit more of a back end heat than there should have been. I loved that the kale added a good crunch and it still held up reheated in leftovers the next day. It was so good that we each went back for seconds. And it's completely vegan  or enjoy with a square of cornbread and a little onion and shredded cheese on top.

Black Bean Chili in all its glory. Even the colors look like fall.

Labor Day Stew

Labor day brings around the symbolic close of summer. While in southern California we may continue to have warm weather for a while but as an early celebration of the fall equinox I made a Chilean Bean Stew courtesy of

Moosewood Restaurant New Classics.   Which is one of my favorite cook books. The reason why I picked stew is because of this early fall visitor, the butternut squash.

 

 Still using the summer produce available such as fresh corn and using the very autumnal butternut squash, this a perfect in between seasons recipe. The recipe calls for 4 cups of butternut cubed but I think there was more than that, or I just need to work on my cubing skills.

The stew was full of flavor with sweetness from the squash and corn, had a little spice from the cayenne, and  a good amount of protein and fiber. I am a huge fan of colorful food and it evokes the colors of fall and summer. It has a good amount of crunch and is completely vegan. My only problem is that in using fresh corn I cut a little too close to the cob and got the weird root kernel part of the corn in the stew. Aside from that I am definitely going to make this again because it was delish.