A Winter's Night Soup

Home with the kids on Tuesdays = a bit more time to make dinner than other nights. Ironic, I know, but there is less of a schlep on home days and I use their naps/quiet time for prep and save their beloved 30-minute episode of Curious George until 5 p.m. so I can assemble dinner.

Fresh-off reading my new Alice Waters cookbook and viewing the Iron Chef America White House Garden special, I wanted a chock-full of veggies soup for the week.

Although inspired by the Art of Simple Food recipe for Winter Minestrone, like most My Family Dish recipes, I did the best with what was available to me at the time, with the time I had. In turn, I served up a tasty (and rather pretty!) winter minestrone. This is not only vegetarian, but vegan if you omit the Parmesan cheese as a garnish.




Winter Minestrone

• 1 onion, chopped finely
• 2-3 carrots, chopped
• 2 stalks of celery chopped
• 1/4 cup of olive oil (like Rachael Ray I don't measure, just a few swirls around the pan)
• 3-4 cloves of garlic, finely minced or grated
• Salt & Pepper
• Rosemary (I used dried, about a teaspoon)
• 1 bunch of fresh kale (mine was neither organic or local and from the "regular" grocery store, but what is a girl to do on New Year's Day, fresh off a trip, with zero food in the fridge?)
• 1 can of diced tomatoes (Alice wanted you to buy organic whole and dice yourself, but I buy diced tomatoes by the case from Costco for moments like this.)
• 2 cups(ish) of butternut squash (A conventional grocery store tale of ready-to-use chopped up butternut squash, apparently a double foul for its lack of "freshness" and addition to my carbon footprint given the pre-packaged purchase.)
• 3-4 cups of water
• 2 cans of cannelloni beans (Alice wanted you to prepare dried ones yourself, but I used canned, a staple in my pantry, and didn't rinse them so that they'd help to thicken soup).
• Salt & Pepper to taste
• Parmesan cheese (optional, for serving)

Heat a large pan (I used my trusty 6 quart Le Creuset) with the olive oil over medium-high heat.

Chop up the onions, celery, and carrots and to the olive oil in the pan. Cook for about 15-20 minutes until fragrant, stirring every so often.

Meanwhile, prep the kale by washing and chopping (okay to keep ribs in kale; cut to about 1.5 inch thick ribbons).

Prep the butternut squash so that it is bite size pieces.

When the onions, celery and carrots are soft and bubbly (you'll smell it!) add the garlic, salt (a good toss of my favorite, kosher) and herbs. Cook for a few minutes.

Add the kale and entire can of diced tomatoes; put lid on pot and let kale cook down a bit, about 5-7 minutes.

Add the water (start with three cups and then add more toward the end if you need it. I didn't.) and butternut squash. Cook for about 15-20 minutes, until squash is soft. Note: my squash sort of fell apart. Likely because I froze it first. The final flavor was superb, but the squash was mushy. Either way, watch it more closely than I did or use fresh squash.

Once the squash is soft, add the beans and let them heat through. Add more water if your soup seems to0 thick for your liking. At this point I had to put my kids to bed, so I just turned the stove to simmer and let it be for 30 minutes. Salt and pepper to taste.

Serve in bowls and garnish with freshly grated Parmesan if you'd like.

The verdict: Add to the Repertoire.

Delicious. Husband didn't believe there was *no chicken stock* at all in the recipe. The broth was so flavorful and rich, due to the slow cooking of the vegetables before adding the water. The vegetables were dynamite; and I concur, it would've been even better if I had a garden out my back-door, but I don't...

I also served with leftover homemade garlic bread from Saturday night's baked ziti (and last of the uber-delicious lamb sausage from the meat share): 1 loaf of french bread (mine was from Costco, of course). Mince 2-3 cloves of garlic, chop a handful of parsley, mix in with 2 tbsp of soft butter. Slice bread in half and spread mixture on both halves. Drizzle with olive oil and then wrap in foil. Bake at 350 until melted and crisp.

P.S. There was a separate kids menu tonight. They were tired and wanted dinner before the soup was ready. Apparently omelets with mozz cheese don't cut it for them. They like their eggs scrambled and scrambled only. They devoured the broccoli (a staple is the Trader Joe's flash frozen organic broccoli for nights when we need dinner in 5 minutes or less) and whole wheat toast, however, both asking for more butter! I wish they could've tried this soup, but I think the texture of the kale might have been more than they could handle and I didn't feel like adding scrubbing walls to my to-do list for tonight.