Fresh Minestrone

This week I actually have two posts in one. Call it free soup, Call it a soup double dip.  Call it whatever you want.  Both recipes also directly relate to my epic cheapness and desire to cook with locally grown ingredients.

First up in our soup double header is chicken broth.  Brian and I got back from San Fran pretty late on Sunday night last week and had no time/energy to bother with thinking about dinner for the entire week. Enter a nice rotisserie chicken complements of my local Kroger and I had the beginnings of home made chicken broth.  For this you will need: one chicken carcass, one onion, three stalks of celery, two carrots, five cloves of garlic, a sprig of rosemary, salt and pepper to taste, water and a lot of free time.

First, coarsely chop the onion, carrots and celery, and peel the garlic cloves. Throw these the whole rosemary sprig and chicken pieces into a big soup pot. If you have one with a pasta strainer insert, it's a good idea to use it.

Add water to cover everything and put it over a medium-high heat.  Bring it to a boil then reduce heat to low to simmer.  Now's a good time to also throw in some salt and pepper.  Simmer for 2-4 hours. Yes, hours.

After a few hours your house will officially smell like Lipton Landing and I can't guarantee that you won't also smell like soup.  Give the broth a taste. It should be pretty bland, and that's just fine.  Remove the strainer insert with its fully water logged veggies and chicken bones from the stock pot. Let the broth cool for about 45 minutes and throw everything else away.

I got about 18 cups of broth out of this. I know that my soups usually take 6 cups of broth, so I ladled 6 cups each into three gallon freezer bags, gently placed two in the freezer for later and kept one out for the next match-up in our double header, some fresh minestrone.

Minestrone is not my best soup. I often make it because it's easy and a good pantry/veggie drawer cleaner, but I must miss something when making it.  It's usually a winter soup for me, so I thought I'd give it a try with some fresh from the farm veggies and see if that was the missing link in making the soup delicious.  Brian and I also finally had time to check out the Sandy Springs Farmer's Market where I found all the tomatoes, beans and potatoes that I used in this soup.  All are organic and were purchased from a very nice young man who likes to give people deals on their purchases. Everything I bought should have been about $18 and he gave it to me for $12 (the epic cheapness was so happy).  I'll likely juxtapose this receipe with a frozen or canned minestrone sometime in winter for a little battle of the minestrones if you will. Until then, here's some Fresh Minestrone.

For this gem you'll need: 1 onion, 2 carrots, 2 stalks of celery, 4 cloves of garlic, 1 sprig of rosemary, 2 serrano peppers (if you're into spicy), 3-4 small potatoes, 8-10 medium tomatoes, 1 zucchini, a bunch of beans (I went with these delightful purple ones), 1 can of kidney beans, 6 cups of broth, and 1 cup of small pasta. You'll also need some not pictured items to taste, additionally I threw in: one sprig of fresh oregano, 2 dried bay leaves, some dried oregano, salt, pepper and crushed red pepper flakes.  Yes, there are many ingredients. Yes, you will be spending some serious time chopping them up.  Lucky for you, it's probaby over 90 degrees outside and it's not like you were going to go outside and do something so just hunker down in the kitchen with your favorite knife and get going.

Start by mincing the garlic, serrano peppers and rosemary.  These serrano peppers came from a very fertile plant in my garden so I felt the need to use them to keep with the farm/garden fresh aspect of this soup. Feel free to leave them out.  Also, dice the onion, celery and carrot.

Next, dice the potatoes.

Then, coarsely chop the tomatoes, keeping the seeds.  I had a few pretty heirloom tomatoes to work with so seeds weren't really a problem.  Please don't judge my horrible knife skills. It's a wonder I have finger tips.

Now, the beans. I got very excited when I saw these beans, mostly because I ♥ purple things and had never seen purple beans before (so I grew up sheltered, my Grandpee had a huge garden in RI, but the only beans it in were green). These beans were a little tough and a little bitter, but they are oh so pretty.  Trim the ends of the beans and cut into 1/4 inch or so lengths.

Lastly, the zucchini. Simple dice this baby up like the rest of the diced veggies.

Now that you've devoted probably at least 30 minutes of your day to chopping veggies, get to cooking. Heat a large pot over medium heat and add some olive oil or other fat. Once it's hot, throw in the garlic, serrano peppers, onions, celery, carrots and rosemary. Cook for about 5 minutes.

Then, add the potatoes. Cooking for another 3 minutes.

Next in is the zucchini.  Cook for another 3 minutes.

Now add the tomatoes. Also throw in the chicken broth and kidney beans. Stir it all up, bring to a boil, then lower heat to a simmer. Let it simmer for about 10 minutes and give it a taste.  That's when I added some fresh oregano, dried oregno, dried bay leaves, salt (lots of it because the homemade broth hardly had any salt in it), pepper and crushed red pepper.

I let my soup simmer for an unnecessarily long amount of time (over an hour) because I went to the gym and wanted to eat it for lunch upon returning. I do not suggest leaving a hot pot of soup on your stove while going to the gym, unless you have someone at home to watch the soup just in case (which I did).  Regardless of my ridiculous simmer time, the soup should simmer for at least 30 minutes.  Again, give it a taste to see if it needs anything. If all systems are a go, throw in the beans.

Next, toss in the pasta. I used cute little shells. Give the whole thing a stir, increase the heat a bit and cook for about 10 minutes or until the pasta are done. Before serving, be sure to fish out the oregano sprig and bay leaves.

This is super tasty topped with a bit of shredded parmesan cheese, which is exactly how I choose to enjoy mine.

Zucchini Zuppa

It's official, I'm in a cooking rut.  I attempted to blame this rut on many things, including but not limited to: I'm trying to buy locally grown produce which leaves me cooking exclusively with tomatoes, zucchini, okra, peaches and some snap beans every week, Brian and I have sports games at least three nights a week so we end up making one thing and either eating it leftover for several days or attempting to repurpose it over the course of the week, and I made two flop dishes last week and elected to eat them all week long instead of cutting my losses and moving on. The underlying reason I'm in this rut is that I'm cheap, or frugal if I'm being nice to myself. I just won't throw food away and I'll only buy things on sale, hence all my other excuses for this cooking rut. Big sigh. There's my confession for the week, if you can even call it a confession because everyone who knows me at all knows about my epic, sometimes debilitating, cheapness. Alas, I perserve. I hit up my local farmer's market in a baptist church parking lot where I suffer through tirades from one very nice farmer about the lack of pesticides creating 'God's blueberries' and picked up some zucchini for this tasty Zucchini Zuppa.

For this simple zuppa, you'll need: an entire head of garlic, two shallots, a few hot peppers of your liking, three medium zucchini, a mess of basil, a can of white beans, a bit of white wine and broth.

Start by roasting the head of garlic.  Preheat your oven to 400 or so. Then lop the top of the garlic head, coat in olive oil and season with salt and pepper. Put this in an oven safe dish and roast for about 40 minutes. My oven safe dish may look remarkably like the soup bowl I often use, and it is. But it's a magic soup bowl that can also go in the oven. I ♥ it. I made two heads of garlic because I wanted to eat some and planned on using the rest during the week, but you only need one head for this soup. In the pursuit of accountability, I stole this recipe/technique from CJ.

 

Meanwhile, chop up the rest of your veggies. I started by coarsely chopping the shallots and hot peppers. The hot peppers were more of an afterthought because they came out of my garden a few days ago and were starting to shrivel a bit and and I didn't want to waste them (epic cheapness). The bowl these are in looks huge, but trust me, it's just two shallots and two thin, short hot peppers.

Then, the zucchini.  I sliced two and a half zucchinis in thin pieces and used a super cool julienne tool to julienne the remaining half zucchini.  The julienned pieces are mostly for garnish so don't waste too much time julienning if you don't have a cool tool. Did you know the word julienne could be so many different parts of speach? Yeah, I'm pretty sure that's all grammatically incorrect. 

Lastly, chiffonade the basil.  I'm also pretty sure chiffonade shouldn't be a verb and some French chef is going to show up at my door and beat me for using it in this manner. Oh well!

Still waiting on the garlic to finish roasting? Maybe put together this blueberry-peach cobbler found on Smitten Kitchen because you have friends coming over later and have it ready to go in the oven the second the garlic is done. Yes, that is what I did with my time.

By now, it's probably a thousand degrees in your kitchen because your epic cheapness thought turning the a/c up to 81 degrees during the day is a good idea since you usually aren't home during the day, and it smells like garlic. Lovely, lovely garlic. Pull that roasted goodness out of the oven and let it cool until you can touch it without burning your hands. Using a fork or just your fingers, get the garlic cloves out and set aside. Pop a few in your mouth as well.

Now, it's cooking time. Heat some olive oil over medium heat in your soup pot of choice. Once the oil is hot add the shallots and peppers. Cook these for about 3 minutes.

Next, add the zucchini and cook for about 5-8 minutes, stirring often.

Throw in a splash, about half a cup of dry white wine.  If it's a wine appropriate time of day, have some yourself too. I was making this at 11 AM which I do not deem a wine appropriate time so I just put the rest of the wine back in the fridge for later.

Next, toss in the garlic.  If you like garlic like I do, throw in the entire head of roasted garlic. If you aren't trying to ward of vampires and that much garlic makes you a little ill, just tone it down a bit.  While you're at it, throw in the basil too.

Finally, in go the rinsed and drained white beans.  I put beans in to add a bit of protein and make the soup a little heartier. If you want something really light, just leave them out, but this girl needs more calories in her soup than vegetables alone provide. Let all the veggies simmer in the wine for about 15 minutes.

Lastly, add 4 cups of broth, bring the soup to a boil then reduce to a simmer. Let this simmer for anywhere from 15-60 minutes. I was hustling around the house cleaning and doing other random chores, so I left mine on the stove for about 40 minutes. Give it a taste to see if it needs anything. I liberally salted and peppered my roasted garlic so the soup itself didn't need much. If you're happy with the taste, blend it up with your stick blender or other blending device.

To serve, throw in some of the julienned zucchini pieces. This would probably also be good with some raw julienned carrots for a color contrast. It makes an absolutely perfect lunch when paired with some tomato-mozzarella salad. The salad is doubly good because those are garden tomatoes and basil (the epic cheapness strikes again). Enjoy!

I'm trying something new with printable recipes, so here's the first go. I fully intend to write printable recipes for everything on here, but sounds like a winter project so hopefully all 10 of you who read this can wait.

Printable recipe