Easy meals series: Minestrone

With the cost of food and the lack of time, you know that you could use recipes you can make ahead to save you tons of money when you are too tired or too broke to go out to eat.

Easy Soups: Minestrone
My go to soup that can last a whole week in the refrigerator, and can be dressed up or down is minestrone.  You can make minestrone with any beans and any vegetables, by the way.
I prefer great northern beans, freshly cooked, or from a can, rinsed and drained, carrots, celery, cabbage and a can of stewed tomatoes.

I saute' diced carrots, celery, onions and garlic in olive oil. (One cup each to make four servings.)
When soft, I add the stewed tomatoes,  chopped cabbage, and one cup of stock, then turn the heat down so everything softens slowly.  Taste after fifteen minutes, and if the cabbage is cooked, add the beans, warm it all up, season with salt, pepper, a few drops of Tabasco or red pepper flakes.

Serve with a good sprinkle of Parmesan cheese and chunky bread.

The next day, if you have any leftovers, you can add rice, or farro, or pasta. My mother used to add tiny ditalini pasta and potatoes to Minestrone. We never had any leftovers!

Cooking your way back home...

Cooking is like looking back in the mirror and discovering your mother is looking at you!

We had our second cooking sessions with the 5th graders yesterday. It was cool, and beginning to spritz when they arrived. Rain was in full swing when they left. I opened the garage for them to leave their shoes in, and their rain gear before coming inside. Good thing I did!

We made minestrone, a rustic apple tart, and crostini with fava and blue cheese.
We used  tomatoes, potatoes, parsley, zucchini, garlic and onions they brought. I added savoy cabbage, carrots, celery, green beans, sage, rosemary, thyme and basil.

I had to be precise in my measurements: something I do not do naturally. I wanted to explain that you can measure with your eyes and your hands, just the way my mother did. I tried. The children and the adults (the teacher, and two of my friends who came to help) wanted clear measurements.

How much of everything?
It doesn't really matter! If you like a certain vegetable, add it in small amounts and see how it changes things.
What does matter?
Taking time to layer the flavors, I responded, doing the sauteing slowly so the onions and the rest of the vegetables you start with, carrots and celery, are slowly caramelized, becoming sweeter, less sharp.

We went to all the steps. I showed them how I had cooked the white beans in advance, with bay leaves and unpeeled garlic cloves. Before I added the beans to the sauteed vegetables I removed the bay leaves and squeezed out the garlic.
Add salt and pepper to taste at this point, I warned.
Why now?
I didn't really know, except that's when Mother did it.
What's to taste?
It has to please your palate. Start with a small amount, taste and adjust. Do the same with herbs. Start with infusing them, tying them in a sachet and suspending them in the liquid. Add fresh herbs at the end, sprinkled over the soup, with a sprinkle of grated cheese.
How much is a sprinkle?

We added more vegetables, and more liquid, chicken stock from a box. I could have told them that Mother never used canned anything, except what she canned or jarred herself. But Mother didn't have our modern conveniences, and she was a  homemaker most days when she wasn't helping Father in the vineyards. She always had a pot of beans boiling in the corner of the big hearth while she moved through chores.

Yes, I'm conjuring up home with every meal I put on the table. And my original home goes back many, many miles, across continents and oceans, and many many years.
This too is what our cooking is about. Retracing our steps and passing down the results of our journeys.

Home-cooked just like Mother's.

Have you craved for food you had as a child, and have not found any restaurants preparing them?
I do. I crave for simple fare, like this dish, beans and greens, for instance.
I crave for home-made pasta, little orecchiette with a simple tomato sauce.
I want to sit down to eat a big bowl of home-made soup.

To have any thing I really want I must take time to prepare the dish myself.

Beans:
I buy bulk beans from bins in the local grocery store. (This year I may purchase heirloom beans and plant them) You can soak the beans overnight, and the cooking will be lessened. Or, rinse your beans in cold water and place them in a big pot, covering with water, two inches above the beans.  Add four cloves of garlic, with skins on and a bunch of herbs tied with a string. Rosemary, thyme, oregano and bay leaves, for instance.  Bring to a boil, and lower heat to a simmer. Cook for a couple of hours at the simmering point, and watch the pot. When the water has been absorbed, test the beans by pressing one of them against the pot. If it squishes easily, it is cooked. Now taste. If cooked, add salt and pepper to taste and squish out the garlic from their skins.  If not cooked through, add a cup of hot broth and continue to simmer until cooked. Remember, do not add salt until the beans are fully cooked.

You now have a pot of beans to use in a couple of dishes.
The one in the picture is beans and chard.  Saute' the chard leaves until soft, in olive oil, chopped onion and garlic and hot pepper flakes. Add a cup of beans, and let the flavors meld.  Eat as a thick soup.

Or, add a cup of cooked rice, and you now have Minestra di riso e fagioli.
Or, add a cup of cooked pasta and you have Minestra di pasta e fagioli.
Add carrots and celery to the olive oil saute', cook until soft, then add chopped tomatoes, cook some more, add chopped cabbage and the beans with broth, and you now have Minestrone.

I hope you make a home-made meal from scratch for your mother this weekend.

Happy Mother's Day!

Clean the refrigerator.

If you want the Christmas tree to last, you need to water it daily, and add aspirins to the water.
If you want your cooked food to last, you need to consume within three days, or freeze it until you remember you put there in the first place.

Happy post-holidays, everyone.
Today, I'm emptying the refrigerator. I'm putting it on a diet of leftovers, make-overs and unusual snacks.

Start with the sweets:

1. Cut your pie in pieces no bigger than two bites and freeze. One day, when you have company, pull out all these pieces and serve with ice cream.

2. Meats: slice or dice, and freeze. You'll pull these out for sandwiches on a cold night when neither of you wants to cook. Or, pull those dices and toss with some cumin for tacos. Better yet, make a thick vegetable stew, add your meat, and serve it as a pot pie.

3. Veggies. You can freeze most of these too, separately. I tend to recycle them immediately as a  Minestrone  with few additions.


Minestrone Recipe:

Saute a diced onion, with diced bacon bits and a tablespoon of olive oil. When translucent, add a can of stewed tomatoes, a cup or two of vegetable stock, some of your favorite fresh herbs all pulverized in the food processors, a can of cannellini beans, drained and rinsed, and  all the other left-over vegetables you can't seem to part with.
Simmer over low heat until you are hungry.

Serve with plenty of left-over rolls and bread you diced and tossed in hot oil and garlic slices.

Enjoy!

Cooking from scratch.

Today, I'm making minestrone, the way my mother made it, the way my grandmother taught her.  The ingredients are the same as hers; the products, however are grown locally, a few miles from here or in my 'orto', vegetable garden.

Is it worth the time it will take? I guarantee you that once you cook something in its authentic form, you will want to do it as often as you can, or as often as you can afford the time.

Time is a real commodity for working people.  I understand that and will take shortcuts too.  However, unless you have tasted the real thing, you will not be able to correct, interpret the abbreviated one.  So, cook something from scratch once a week, and you will taste the fruit of your labor with pleasure and satisfaction.

Minestrone Recipe:

Ingredients:
2 C. Cannellini beans, or white navy beans, cooked until soft
2 Bay leaves
4 Cloves of garlic, whole and unpeeled to go with the beans.
2Cloves of garlic, minced fine for the sauce
2 C shredded cabbage
1C diced carrots
1C diced celery
1C diced potatoes
1C whole canned tomatoes
2T olive oil
1 bunch of parsley, chopped
2 C of stock, preferably vegetable, homemade. Use one can of stewed tomatoes, or two cups of V8 if stock not available
1 cup of freshly grated Parmesan cheese
Salt and Pepper to taste


In a big pot, cook one cup of dried beans until soft, with four cups of water, bay leaf and garlic cloves. When soft, remove the bay leaves, squeeze the garlic, and discard the skins.  If you do not like this much garlic, adjust. Based on the age of the beans, this might take all morning. Farmers' markets sell dried beans that are usually fresh or a season's old. These will cook in less than an hour.
When the beans are soft, add salt and pepper to taste.  Keep warm.

In a  medium skillet, saute' garlic, carrots and celery in olive oil for five minutes. Add the tomatoes without the juice. . When tomatoes have cooked down, drop this into the bean pot.  Now, add the rest of the ingredients, including the reserved liquid from the tomatoes, except the cheese.

The minestrone will need to simmer slowly for about an hour, adding more liquid if needed, for the potatoes and cabbage will soak up liquids and flavors. 

Taste. Add salt and pepper if needed. Add a pinch of dried oregano or thyme, or a bouillon cube if the minestrone needs it.  I know at this point that some vegetables were too bland and will correct it with herbs or a spoonful of pesto added to each serving.

(Pesto recipes will appear in another post!)

Serve in a soup bowl with a generous amount of grated cheese, and crusty bread.

Enjoy!

Note: Any leftovers will freeze well if no potatoes are used. So, this time, you have to eat the whole thing in a couple of days. Better yet, invite friends to share.

This is what the dish looks like when all the ingredients are in and before it cooks down at low heat. There is enough for four people. I will have enough for two more meals sometimes in the next few weeks.