Kitchen Wisdom Gluten Free Minestrone, a simple vegetable soup which nourishes the body and brings warmth on a cold night.  I think a lot of people are familiar with this soup.  A basic farm soup, recipes such as this are common all over Europe and tables of American farming families.   “Big Soup” as minestrone translates too, is just a soup of lots of things:  vegetables, beans and pasta in a stock.  Every household cooks it differently.  It can also be prepared using different vegetables.   I use beef stock, but vegetable broth can be used as a wonderful substitute to make this vegan.

1 ½  cups cooked Kidney Beans (or 16 ounce can)

3  cloves finely chopped Garlic

½   cup chopped Onion

1  cup chopped Celery

½ – 1  cup Celery Greens chopped (if possible)

1  cup chopped Carrots

1 small to medium zucchini, chop in bite size pieces

1  can Whole Peeled Tomatoes

32  ounces Beef Stock (homemade or store bought)

2   Tablespoons Extra Virgin Olive Oil

½  cup chopped Flat Leaf Italian Parsley

1  small Bay Leaf

2   inch  OPTIONAL: Rind of favorite Hard Italian Grating  Cheese, eg. Locatelli  or Romano

Pinch salt

Milled  Black Pepper (to taste)

Chop and prepare all of the above ingredients.  See the note below regarding cleaning and chopping parsley.

     Warm the pan on medium, add 2 Tablespoons of olive oil, allow the oil to warm long enough to see it thin out slightly.

     Add garlic and sauté another 30 seconds.

     Add the Carrots and celery, sauté another minute.

     Add the zucchini, stir and continue to sauté.

     Add bay leaf, add all of the (optional) fresh flat leaf italina parsley stems, and ½ of the celery greens.  Gently pass a pinch of salt along all of the vegetables sautéing.  The celery greens impart a delicious layer of flavor, by adding some of them during sauté infuses something special into the vegetables.

     Reduce flame to low, cover pan, allow vegetables to cook for 3-5 minutes.  The salt will help them sweat out their liquids, thereby infuses all of the vegetable with corresponding flavors.

     Open the can of whole peeled tomatoes. Using your hands, gently squeeze one tomato at a time over the pan.  First, allow some of the liquid to run out of the tomato before vigorously squeezing (if you do not do this, there will be an explosion of tomato liquid everywhere). Repeat for each tomato.  Reserve the liquid from the can to add to the pot later.

     Add the pre-cooked or canned red kidney beans.

      Raise flame a bit, cover and cook for 3-5 minutes, allows the flavors to begin to marry.

     Add 4 cups (32 ounces) of beef stock.

     Add the liquid from the tomatoes.

     Add 1 cup of water.

     Cover and bring to a rolling simmer.  Add (optional) rind of locatelli (or other hard Italian grating cheese-be sure label is removed).  Allow simmer to roll for 5 minutes.

     Add ¾ of the parsley leaves and the rest of the celery greens, bring back up to a simmer.

     Place flame to low. Cover pot, but leave slightly ajar (leaving a scant 1/8th to ¼ of an inch of the soup exposed.

     Simmer on low with lid slightly ajar for 40 minutes or longer.  Stir every 20 minutes.

     Serve with small pasta.  GF ditalini are the perfect pairing for this soup, but any small pasta will do.  Don’t add the pasta directly to the soup, or it will just turn to mush within 15 minutes.  Add the pasta to the soup bowl and ladle the soup over it.

      Serve in Soup bowls with fresh milled pepper and some grated cheese.

Minestrone Soup – Forget What You Know About Wheat(c) 2014

Celery Greens:  Celery Greens are often the secret ingredient in many soups.  The greens of celery bulbs are now cut off in the conventional foods market.  Sometimes, if you are lucky you can snag a few out of the center.  I try to eat organic when possible, but when vegetables are out of season, organic can be cost prohibitive.  Living in Vermont, during growing season I always look out for fresh organic celery at local farm stands, or the gardens belonging to friends.  You do not want to use any leaves which are yellow or really huge – these will be very bitter.  To store during summer for use in cold weather:  very quickly blanch the leaves in boiling hot water, plunge in ice water, pat dry and freeze the greens in sealed packages.  They keep for a few months, definitely into soup season.  What a great reminder of summer on a cold dreary day!

Celeriac:   Celeriac is a kind of celery and is a root vegetable.  It is delicious and tastes just like celery.  Available in natural food stores and some supermarkets during cold weather months, it is an excellent vegetable to place in soups. Just cut off the outer skin, chop small and sauté with garlic and onion, at the start of soup making.

Serve with  Kitchen Wisdom Gluten Free

Italian Grilled Cheese – Mozzarella en Carozza

Bread Dumplings Gluten Free

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