welcome friends welcome back to the
kitchen today we're going to do a recipe
for soup
that um
really triggers those purists they hate
this soup
i really enjoy it um i can't find my
garlic crusher
i wonder where that's gone anyway
i really like this soup and i'm gonna do
so it's super toscana or tuscan soup
i'm not staying true to the version of
that that that place run by the olive
farmers
i'm i'm making a version on my own
that sort of reaches back to a video
that we did in 2015 with an italian chef
who did an actual tuscan soup a soup
that would be representative of soup
that you would see on tables in tuscany
her name is emily richards she is a chef
cookbook author
recipe developer and she had a show on
um on the food network
back when the food network had cooking
shows so take a look for that recipe on
her channel it is a great tuscan soup
but the version of
zupatascana that i'm going to make today
is really
tightly linked
to that group of olive farmers from
orlando florida
although they have
they have groves all over the united
states
it's been a long time since they had one
close to us there are none left in
toronto
probably a decade or more since they
were gone
anyway
this restaurant group
based in orlando florida makes american
italian food and it's very purposely i'm
saying american italian rather than
italian-american
and they've come up with this shorthand
for recipes on their menu
that feature a cream sauce
with tomatoes
and a green
in the sauce either kale or spinach
and they've branded it tuscan and
they've been very successful
with this sort of flavor combination or
sauce combination
selling it as tuscan okay so that bacon
is frying off nicely i don't want to fry
it
all the way
i'm going to add in some
italian sausages i've taken the casings
off the sausage
so i can just break it up
and we're going to fry that down as well
i found my garlic crusher so back on it
if you've ever been to tuscany you know
that this is not a dish this combination
really isn't something that you're going
to find on the tables there it is fusion
food plain and simple
tuscan is just short form for i'm
expecting cream tomato and and a green
and the tomato can be in the form that
i've got here today i've got little
cherry tomatoes that i've cut in half
or more often it is
a sun-dried tomato put in for a really
intense tomato flavor so i'm just
cooking this down
breaking up the sausage
because you don't want big lumps of
sausage you want the sausage sort of
tiny little pieces all the way through
and at this point i'm going to put in
carrot celery and onion this is where i
differ from
the olive grove
they don't use celery or tomato or
celery or carrot in their soup but i
think it really adds something to the
soup so i'm gonna put it in because i
like it and i'm cooking for myself
and i encourage you always to cook for
yourself and do things that you like
all right so just continue stirring and
cooking this and sweat this down
until the onions are
really translucent
and keep breaking up that sausage
now i'm going to crush in some garlic
and
pull this out of the garden this morning
this is this year's harvest of garlic
so in that
goes i've got some red pepper flakes
a couple pinches of that
and i'm going to cheat i'm going to use
italian seasoning a ready-made seasoning
mix i'm putting about that much maybe
about two teaspoons or tablespoon
and we'll stir that in
now in terms of spicing
uh the sausage that you use determines a
lot of what you need to put in for
spicing if you've got a really flavorful
sausage like a really good flavored
sausage like i do
you don't have to put as many other
ingredients in to build up that flavor
if your sausage is so-so you're gonna
have to put in some other things to sort
of build it up and the same thing with
salt i'm not putting in salt just yet
because there's going to be a lot of
salt carried in with
this with the stock that i use
so i'm very careful about adding salt
too much salt too early in the process
next in i'm going to put white beans and
i'm using navy beans today because
they're just a little bit smaller than
cannellini or white kidney beans
and i think for this type of soup
the smaller bean fits on my spoon better
and it makes me much happier
so use a bean that you like
um but you know cannellini would be the
traditional bean used in the soup
i've got some cherry tomatoes i'm gonna
put those in
i've got a couple of cubed up potatoes
in they go
and i've got some chicken stock
in that goes
there we go i'm going to give it a stir
i'm going to bring this up to a boil and
then turn it down to a simmer put a lid
on and let it go for about half an hour
okay so we just had the brownies the
bacon maple brownies and the soup and i
went with bowls
and got bowls so we're ready for soup so
the soup is pretty much ready to go the
last two ingredients that you add are
the whipping cream
and
the spinach
so a cup of whipping cream
this could be kale if you like kale
i'm not a fan of kale unless it's
been through a frost cycle
i've realized that
and
the spinach wilts in almost immediately
so it's just pretty much a matter of
stirring it together and
there we go
very colorful it is very colorful it is
it is that
you know olive garden
tuscan soup color
okay pull the super julie ready turn
that off
now i would encourage you
to go and watch
the video the video from 2015
of emily making an actual tuscan soup oh
that's a good soup yeah that is a really
good soup
um and it's a video from 2015 that
doesn't have many views so you know
everybody who watches this view this
video just
just clicked over and watched you know
the video even if it was playing in the
background
that would be great but it is a great
but it is a great soup it is a great
soup
emily is a great cook yeah
chef chef technical chef
it's bright
it's clean
um
the amount of cream that i put in there
doesn't
doesn't drag it down like some cream
soups can can be really heavy
it's still a very light soup the cream
just sort of adds a little bit of mouth
feel but it doesn't doesn't drag it down
it's hot oh it's hot right at the it is
hot
the bowl is hot now
so if you're a fan of
the olive farmer soup
this has some additions
that just sort of rounds rounds it out a
little bit i think
um i'm really enjoying it i think i
could probably even eat the biscuits you
made the other day would go in as well
yes the non-leaven
the the biscuits the beaten biscuits
from the early
1800s okay so we're going to go and sit
down and actually eat our supper
this is great soup
um
i would encourage you to try it and make
it and i would encourage you to try an
actual tuscan soup and then compare the
two and let us know down in the comments
what you think thanks for stopping by
see you again soon
you