Recipe 49: Ribolita

This soup is so good it should it come with a warning:  you will want to eat it forever.  And lucky for you, you can!  It makes enough to feed the entire von Trapp family and all their neighbors in the convent.  The hills of your mouth will be alive with delicious.  You may even want to sing about it. It is possibly the best recipe in The Soup Bible (but as I haven't made them all, this is a dubious statement - they are all really good).   As a liquorice h8r, I was dubious about the fennel.  But you know what?  This recipe totally turned my h8r ways bass-ackwards.  Now I love fennel, all thanks to Debra Mayhew & Co.  This is a hearty, delectible, peasant-y soup that freezes well and is great in winter, fall, and even spring!

The Soup Bible's Ribolita

Question: What is red and green and blue all over? Anser

Ingredients

3 Tbsp Olive Oil

2 onions, chopped

2 carrots, chopped

4 crushed garlic cloves

2 celery stalks

1 fennel bulb, finely sliced (to fit decently on a soup spoon)

2 zucchini, sliced (sub in one yellow squash for color if you feel so inclined)

14 oz can crushed tomato

2 tbsp pesto

3 ¾ cups vegetable stock/broth

14 oz can of white beans of your choice (recommended are haricot or borlotti, which frankly, are about as easy to find as a snowman in July - save yourself the time and get cannellini )

salt & pepper to taste

1 lb fresh young spinach

• Heat the oil over medium heat in a large soup pot or Dutch oven.
• Add the onions, carrots, garlic, celery, and fennel and sauté slowly for 10 minutes, stirring occasionally.
• Add zucchini and cook 2 minutes more.
• Add crushed tomatoes, pesto, stock, & beans.
• Bring to a boil, and then lower the heat, cover, and simmer for 25-30 minutes until vegetables are tender.  Season to your taste.
• Add spinach to the pot, cover, and wait approximately two minutes until it wilts.  Check seasoning, and serve. Note that the spinach step is a departure; the og recipe calls for you to saute it with olive oil and serve over individual bowls.  I am lazy - this makes more dishes.  It tastes fine with the spinach mixed in. 
• Best served either over or with a side crusty bread and Parmesan cheese.

Since I am neither a von Trapp nor a convent dwelling nun, what do I do with my massive vat of leftovers? 

I am so glad you asked.  Leftovers from this soup are GREAT for other meals or variations! They can be used for breakfast  (or really any meal) if you put a serving into a frying pan, hollow out a spot, crack an egg on in*, cover and let it poach as the leftovers warm.  YUM.  This variation is also good served with crusty bread and cheese.  

*Disclaimer: I love poached eggs like Lindsay Lohan loves getting arrested.  I especially love them poached in other soupy, flavorful substances, like leftover soupy, flavorful soup.  YUM.  If you don't like poached eggs, I don't like you.  SALTED.

Recipe 52: Spicy Peanut Soup

Like a bottle of Heinz Ketchup has 52 ingredients, my boy Blue will have 52 recipes. Thus begins the 52 Le Creuset Challenge! Recipe 52 (whatever, whatever, I do what I want, like count down!) was the recipe that started it all. And I'll have you know, it was delish. It comes to me from The Soup Bible, a gem published by Barnes & Noble and edited by Debra Mayhew (ISBN: 978-0-7607-9045-8), but was further edited por moi for reasons like "Oh shizer, I just walked to the grocery store in a blizzard* and forgot to get the corn I set out to get in the first place." This soup is bangtastic, all warm from both the warmth AND the spice, and filled with way more veggies than you originally think. Prep takes a while, but the soup itself cooks pretty quickly.

Spicy Peanut Soup

Allegedly serves six....but it's really more like eight.

Ingredients:
2 Tbsp olive oil
1 large minced onion
3 cloves crushed garlic
1 tsp cayenne pepper
2 large red bell peppers, minced (and obvi seeded)
1.5 cups minced carrots
1.5 cups finely chopped potatoes
3 stalks celery, finely chopped
4 cups/32 oz vegetable stock
6-8 Tbsp crunchy natural peanut butter**
1 can whole corn kernels (or one cup frozen)***
salt & fresh pepper

1. Heat the oil over medium-high.
2. Add the onion and garlic and saute for about 3 minutes, until onions are soft.
3. Add the cayenne and stir for about a minute.
4. Add the vegetables through celery and stir. Cook for around 4 minutes, stirring occasionally.
5. Add the stock, peanut butter, and corn. Stir until the peanut butter incorporates.
6. Season the soup and bring it to a boil.
7. Lower the heat to a medium, bringing the soup to a simmer. Cover.
8. Cook for around 20-30 minutes until the vegetables are tender. Adjust spices as you see fit!
9. The soup bible recommends serving this dish with crushed, unsalted, roasted peanuts as a garnish. I recommend just eating it. It's a souper supper.

*I'm not making up a fake blizzard to garner your moste skeptical sympathy points. True story, there was a blizzard. True story, the snow was up to my knees. But true story, I did not walk uphill both ways, Old Timer.
**I wound up using closer to 8 because my original 5 were the remainder of my jar of Teddies. Being au-natural, the oils were mostly gone and it was a tad dry. Thusly, I added about 2-3 more heaping Tbsp's from my fresh jar.
***Being a toolbox, I forgot to get the corn (like I said earlier). I used a can of sweet corn I got at the drug store. I let it soak and rinsed it several times in the hopes that it would strip some of the sugars away. I'm pretty sure this did nothing, and it was really good regardless...so...moot point? Up to you.