January 22 – January 28, 2024

Monday:                   Winter Minestrone with Cabbage Pesto/Soda Bread

Wednesday:            Bucatini all-Amatriciana

Thursday:                 Croque Monsieur with Tomato Soup

Friday:                       Sausage on toast with peppers and tomato soup

Saturday:                  Pizza – Margherita with Pancetta

Sunday:                     Pasta with Onions, Pancetta and Trader Joe’s Marinara Sauce

Soup to Warm the Bones

We are no longer in a deep freeze in Western Pennsylvania; we’re settling down to the sort of damp, sunless cold that makes it impossible to feel comfortable outdoors or in.  It remains the kind of weather that calls for warm, comforting, substantial food, not thin soup.  But this week we’re going to tell you about a soup that is anything but thin and has a bright cabbage pesto to give it a little more crunch and texture than you even deserve.

Now I have meat-and-potato friends for whom the idea of soup as anything other than a first course remains anathema.  They reflect the taste of previous generations of wonderful folks who built this country, fought wars, and invented raisin bran.  But those ancestors did back-breaking work for 8 or more hours a day.  So, even though they ate a lot, they were not circumferentially challenged as so many of us are today.  Most people had to walk several miles each day, split wood for the fire and stove, haul water in from the well and, generally, move and lift and pull and hammer and climb and spend the energy that required the meat and potatoes to begin with.

Let me suggest that you keep up the meat-and-potatoes diet if you’re a professional athlete, a hands-on farmer, telephone lineman, lumberjack, pearl diver or marathoner.  But if your job consists of sitting at a desk, looking at a computer screen, or driving or flying around the country to have ‘meetings,’ give the meat and potatoes a rest from time to time, and try a salad or, for something substantial, this week’s recipe – Winter Minestrone with Cabbage Pesto.  Add some nice crusty bread and you’ll have a meal that will give you the energy you need to move that cursor or speed-dial that customer or keep your fingers nimble enough to deal with the TV remote-control and perhaps give you the stamina to perform a ‘search’ on Smart-TV with those lighter than a feather controllers that squirt out of your hand like a bar of soap.

If, after dinner and TV or a book, you still have to climb a flight of stairs, well, have a cookie for dessert.

Winter Minestrone with Cabbage Pesto

(adapted from NYT Magazine, 1/21/24)

Timing:                                                 80 minutes or so

Ingredients:                                             Serves 4

4 celery ribs, diced  /  2 medium carrots peeled and diced / large yellow onion, diced / 5 garlic cloves, minced (we used 3), plus one more for the pesto (we omitted) / 1 tablespoon minced rosemary / 5 cups baby spinach

½ cup orzo / 14 oz. can of black beans, drained / 14 oz. can diced tomatoes, drained / 2 ¼ cups of chicken stock

½ cup plus 1/3 cup extra-virgin olive oil

½ savoy cabbage, cut into quarters, cored, then thinly sliced crosswise (we used regular cabbage) / 3 tablespoons pine nuts / lightly packed cup of parsley leaves and thin stems

Kosher salt / ground black pepper

[Note:  vary the amount of celery, carrot, onion and garlic per your taste.  Vary the liquid depending on how thick you want the soup to be.  We like the liquor that most canned beans come in, so we drained the black beans, but did not rinse them]

Prep:

Dice and mince vegetables (except for cabbage and spinach) and herbs.  You can put the carrots, celery and onions together, but keep the garlic separate.

Core and slice ½ cabbage and put 4 cups aside for the soup, the rest for the pesto

Drain beans and tomatoes

Measure out chicken stock and orzo

Cook the Soup:

Heat ½ cup olive oil, celery, carrots, onion, rosemary and 1 ½ teaspoons of salt and some good grinds of pepper in a large Dutch oven or pot over medium-high or a bit lower (if your onions start to burn) for about 25 minutes – stirring occasionally.  You’re looking for the vegetables to soften and caramelize a bit (let those onions get some color).

Now add the minced garlic and stir, cooking for a minute or two, then add the tomatoes and cook for two minutes or so until they begin to break down.

Now add the 4 cups of sliced cabbage and cook for 4 minutes, stirring regularly – the cabbage should be well coated with the sauce you have created.

Add the chicken stock and 3 ¼ cups of water, stir to combine, bring to a simmer on high heat and cook for 20 minutes.

Now add the orzo and cook for another 5 minutes, stirring occasionally – you don’t want the orzo to stick to the pan.

Remove from the heat, stir in the spinach and the black beans and set aside for 5 minutes to allow the orzo to finish cooking.

During that time make the pesto:

Pulse the parsley and pine nuts with the remaining cabbage, minced garlic if you like (we did not), and ½ teaspoon of salt in a food processor to form a coarse paste.  Stir in the remaining olive oil, or somewhat less, add a good amount of pepper and transfer the pesto to a serving bowl.

Serve:

Ladle the soup into bowls and top with a spoonful of the cabbage pesto.