Feeling Soupish

one recipe, two ways to enjoy

This week’s recipe isn’t quite a casserole but more of a soup with a crispy baked element. While minestrone gets tons of well-deserved attention for being one of the great Italian soups, ribollita, which means reboiled, is often overlooked. Traditionally ribollita was a way of stretching leftover vegetable soups, like minestrone, for longer by adding stale bread to the soup to thicken it up and kept everyone feeling fuller, longer. This is still a great use for stale bread but sometimes I just wanna start with ribollita, not end with it, ya know? And if you’re thinking this is basically just Italian tortilla soup, a way to use up stale, everyday carb ingredients in new, thoughtful ways- yes, pretty much. The more you cook and learn about food, the more you realize humans are so damn creative and similar no matter where in the world they are. So this week we have two approaches to the same great dish, depending on your schedule.

Both approaches to this recipe start the same. You make a delicious white bean and kale soup with veggies and tomatoes that is divine just on its own. Then if you plan on eating all of the dish right way, just place the cut-up bread right on top of the soup, spray it with a little oil and let it bake in the oven until the bread gets nice and crispy. I love it this way, but the bread will absorb so much of the broth if you let it sit overnight so if you’re wanting leftovers, let me recommend a second path. 

Cut up the bread and toast it separately on a baking sheet while you make the soup and use them to top each serving of the soup, rather than the whole dish. Now you can have a nice bowl of ribollita whenever you want and still have plenty of broth in your bowl. However how you choose to do it, you’re gonna feel perfectly full,cozy, and comfort that only a good bowl of soup can bring.

Baked Ribollita

Makes enough for 6 servings

1 tablespoon olive oil

½ a yellow onion, chopped

2 carrots, chopped

2 ribs of celery, chopped

2 tablespoons chopped fresh rosemary

1 teaspoon dried oregano

1 tablespoon tomato paste

One 15 ounce can diced tomatoes, regular or fire-roasted

6 cloves of garlic, minced

3 cups of kale, chopped with tough spines removed

1 tablespoon tamari or Bragg’s Liquid Aminos

1 ½ cups cooked white beans or one 15 ounce can, drained and rinsed

5 cup vegetable broth

¼ cup chopped fresh basil

¼ cup chopped fresh parsley

Salt and pepper to taste

½ loaf sourdough or crusty French bread, cut into bite-size cubes, about 5 cups

Spray oil

Warm up the oven to 425 degrees.

Warm up the oil in a large stock pot over a medium high heat. Add the onion with a pinch of salt and sauté until the onion softens and starts to brown in some spots, at least 5 minutes. Add the carrot, celery, rosemary, and oregano and sauté for another 2 minutes. Add the tomato paste, breaking up any large clumps, and sauté all together for an additional 2 minutes. This gives the tomato paste time to caramelize and deepens the flavor of the soup. Toss in the diced tomatoes and garlic, stirring everything up. Add the kale then drizzle over the tamari and mix the whole pot up again. Fold in the white beans then pour in the broth. Sprinkle in the herbs and let the whole pot come to a simmer, stirring occasionally. Once the pot is simmering, turn off the heat.

Now you have a choice to make. If you plan on eating this right away then just place the cut up bread right on top of your soup pot, spray the top lightly with a little oil and let it bake for 20 minutes until the bread is nice and toasty. This is great but if you plan on having leftovers, the bread will absorb some of the broth leaving you with barely any soup. So if you plan on having lots of leftovers, place the bread cubes separately on a baking sheet instead, spray the tops lightly with oil, and place them in the oven for 15 minutes until they are nice and toasted. Then dish up some soup and place the toasted bread right on top of each serving. That way every bowl of ribollita has the right soup-to-bread ratio, even if you’re on day 4 of leftovers.

No matter how you add the bread, serve this warm with some extra herbs scattered around.

Thanks for joining us here each week and letting us cook with you. It means a lot.

Michelle (and Matt)