Hearty vegetable soup. (screen swooshes)
We have two zucchini, a couple of carrots.
We have celery, we have onions.
We have, as I do in most soups
and slow cooked sauces,
a big chunk of Parmigiano Reggiano rind.
We have one box, or two bottles or cans,
of Italian beans.
If you cook them off yourself,
you have to soak them overnight.
This depends on your time factor.
And you cook them with a split onion,
such as a halved onion,
and some bay and lots of salt.
Beans and potatoes love salt.
We're gonna add a little oregano,
some basil at the very end.
We're also putting in an entire bunch of kale
and a whole head of cauliflower.
So we're starting in that giant soup pot
(food sizzling)
with the bottom covered with olive oil.
And now we need this to sweat,
before we can add the garlic
and the rest of the ingredients.
So we're going to throw in our Parm rind.
Put the lid just slightly ajar
and let that start to break down.
The cauliflower has been par-cooked
for five minutes in boiling salted water.
Then you cool it.
And you can do this ahead, of course.
And then you break it
into small little florets or chop it.
For the kale, all we did was stem it
and you can substitute escarole
or any dark green you like.
You could use shard,
if you like the looks of that
that day at the store.
We're gonna use kale 'cause I find
it's nice and sturdy for soups.
It really stands up to a long cook with a soup.
Although, this doesn't take that long, actually.
Another note is that we're gonna stir in
the tomato and basil.
We have passata.
Passata comes in these little glass jars,
in two or three cups.
Passata is just crushed fresh tomatoes
that aren't cooked.
If you have tomato puree or tomato sauce
in your pantry that you'd like to use up,
by all means.
You need about two cups.
If you're not going to eat all of this
on the day you prepare it,
you should really par-cook your pasta.
We chose ditalini, but any small pasta.
You should cook the pasta separately.
When the water comes to a boil, add salt.
That was a tab of salt I just added.
And we keep this on the side
so that we can add it per portion.
And you can serve two portions at a time
or three portions at a time.
And you can measure out how much pasta
you want to cook. (screen swooshes)
Okay, so I added the kale, just to wilt it in
after the veggies were sweat a little bit.
Now we're gonna add in our cauliflower,
our beans,
a little garlic.
(garlic grating)
And now I'm gonna add, also,
a little hint of nutmeg
because of our dark greens.
We used kale today.
Any dark green will do.
Pop him over here.
Scrape off the extra garlic
if you use a grater.
And a touch of oregano.
And now we're gonna give that a stir.
And we're gonna add a couple of cups
of tomato passata.
And we're going to add in a quart-
I can't get around you, hun.
A quart of vegetable stock. (liquid pouring)
(screen swooshes)
And look at this,
look at all of this great nutrition.
Your eyes tell you what's good for you, guys.
Look at the rainbow of colors
in this beautiful, hearty vegetable soup.
Again, even if you're a meat-eater,
you're not going to miss meat in this soup.
So now, to serve,
we take a little bit of our noodle of choice.
We have ditalini, a short macaroni.
And then we're going to cover it
with that hot, beautiful, hearty soup.
Perfect day for it, as I said.
While we're filming this,
it's pouring snow outside, so, perfect.
Perfect. Perfect.
(screen swooshes and twinkles)
(text swooshes and twinkles)