pasta with zucchini

for me, the best pastas are the simplest ones.. pasta is already so delicious in and of itself! (i <3 carbs...)

here we do a pasta with just zucchini and garlic, salt and pepper.. i know it's not summer squash season, but i found these guys on sale at the grocery store and couldn't resist. (i have to admit, this usually comes out better in the summer :-)

you can use whatever pasta shape you like.. though to be honest, i'm pretty damn picky about pasta shape and texture. i normally like cooking barilla "whole grain" pasta, but i didn't have any and ended up using some gemelli i had bought at manor. (i <3 carbs in the form of gemelli...)

ingredients:

pasta (i used half the bag of gemelli pictured here ==>)

extra virgin olive oil

2 large zucchini, sliced as above (or more!)

1-2 cloves garlic, minced (or more!)

1 onion, chopped (optional)

chili pepper flakes (optional)

salt & pepper

1. prepare the pasta. i always like my pasta super al dente... and salty! (mm.. carbs..)

2. while the pasta is boiling, sautee the onion (if you want to include it) in olive oil. add the garlic and the zucchini slices. sautee on medium heat until the zucchini browns, as pictured below. you can add chili flakes if you like.

3. when the zucchini is sufficiently browned and tender, add the cooked pasta. heat together for a few minutes, seasoning generously with salt and pepper. also, add more olive oil if you like. as you can tell from my photos, i not only like my pasta al dente and salty, i also like it oily... (mm.. olive oil..)

ribollita! (dorothy's favorite soup! ;-)

it's snowy here in geneva, and one of the only consolations i have suffering through winter is: SOUP.

as i mentioned in my last post, i had some great soups while visiting tuscany. i was chatting with dorothy about a great ribollita i had, and she said that it's her favorite soup! apparently, when she was backpacking through tuscany more than a decade ago, she was told by the locals to have this soup.. she loved it, and it's held a special place in her heart ever since (and lemme tell you, dorothy loves soups...) i was so lucky to have serendipitously tried it last week in pisa! (shameless plug: this story should probably also go on our other blog, http://freakishwondertwins.blogspot.com/, where we document all of our freakish-wonder-twin experiences.)

the ribollita that i had was really fantastic, and it's inspired me. from the soup i had in pisa, i'm gathering that the essential ingredients are: kale (cavolo nero), beans (cannellini), and bread! geneva sucks and kale is noooo where to be found, so i had to wait for a friend to bring some up from italy for me :-P

btw, ribollita apparently means "reboiled"! the server at the restaurant in pisa said that they spent days cooking their ribollita.. not sure if he was joking or not, but i guess the point is that it should be cooked for a long time...

anyway, here goes my first attempt... (it came out really good, actually.. and not too far from what i had tasted in pisa :-)

ingredients:

extra virgin olive oil

1 onion, chopped

2 carrots, chopped

3 stalks of celery, chopped

1 clove garlic, minced

several small potatoes, chopped into bite-size pieces

1 bunch of dinosaur kale (cavolo nero?), chopped into bite-size pieces

1 can of tomatoes

cannellini beans (dried or canned), however much you want

salt & pepper

bread (several slides of good, dry bread)

1. prepare the beans (if you're using dried beans). i cooked my cannellini beans in a pressure cooker, for 30 minutes, until they were good and tender.

2. prepare the vegetables. sautee the onion, carrot, and celery in a stock pot. when tender, add the garlic, potatoes, and kale. add the canned tomatoes and let simmer until the potatoes and kale are tender (about 30 minutes?)

3. add the beans and let it simmer for another 10-20 minutes. add salt and pepper to taste.

4. take half the soup and puree it in your blender (adding water as needed), and return it to the stock pot. (if you have an immersion blender, just use that and puree as much as you like.. as i mentioned in my last post, i kinda like my soups to maintain their vegetable integrity, so i don't puree too much.)

5. prepare the bread. cut the bread into bite-size pieces and toast it in the oven until just toasted. when serving the soup, put the bread into the bottom of the bowl, and then ladle the soup on top of the bread. (btw, i got the impression from other recipes i perused and also from the soup i had in italy that the bread should be cooked into the soup. for some reason, that idea grosses me out, so i just added the bread just before serving!)

6. voila! delicious soup. enjoy!

pasta & bean soup

i had some great soups while i was in pisa last week... in particular, i had an amazing ribollita and also a great farro & fagioli soup. as for the former, i couldn't find any cavolo nero (tuscan kale) in geneva, and i'm consequently awaiting a shipment from NC, who'll bring some for me from italy. (ribollita recipe coming soon... :-P)

as for the latter, i didn't have any farro on hand, and instead, i tried making a similar soup with pasta. the farro & fagioli soup i had in pisa was creamier than this one (since all the vegetables were puréed). however, i like keeping some integrity to the vegetables in my soup, and i refrained from puréeing it all. also, i probably added too much pasta; i always feel like too much pasta dilutes the quality of a good soup.

the point of this soup was to be simple, but delicious.. which it indeed turned out to be!

borlotti beans, dry or canned (if you can't find borlotti, i bet cannellini beans would work well)

small pasta (i used "mezze penne rigate")

olive oil

carrot, chopped

celery, chopped

onion, choppd

garlic, minceed

rosemary

thyme

salt & pepper

1. prepare the beans. i used dried beans and cooked them in the pressure cooker with salt, for about 30minutes. i cooked the beans until they were really tender. be sure to save the water that the beans were cooked in; we'll use this as the soup stock.

2. prepare the pasta; i decided to boil the pasta half-way before putting it into the soup, to prevent the soup from becoming too thick & starchy.. however, i think it'd turn out fine with the pasta cooked in the soup stock directly (in step 5).

3. in a stock pot, sautee the chopped onion, carrot, and celery with olive oil.. toss in the minced garlic, rosemary & thyme (to taste; i put about 1 tsp dried rosemary and just a dash of thyme). once everything is tender, add the beans, bean "stock", salt and pepper (to taste) to the sauteed vegetables.

4. then, take half of this soupy mixture and puree it in your food processor, adding water if needed.. then put it back into your stock pot. (or if you have an immersion blender, just blend it directly in the soup pot). let it simmer for a while, until your soup attains the desired consistency and flavor.

5. now (if you haven't already added pasta), add the half-way cooked pasta now. let it simmer until the pasta is done!