Not a minestrone ...

 

The weather continues to be uniformly awful with wind and squalls of heavy rain, meaning no gardening, walking, cycling or any other outdoor activity.

We are living like hermits, confined to the house by the appalling weather, weather where you need something warming to eat, so last night I made a pot of not quite minestrone – I’m sure that any self respecting Italian nonna would be appalled at my recipe, but the result was flavoursome and filling, just what you need in the middle of winter.

Start by soaking and simmering around 150g of haricot beans, much as I did with my union beans recipe.

Then, about three to four hours before you want to eat, chop up a couple of celery stalks, and a medium carrot. Finely dice a couple of rashers of smoky bacon or you could use some smoked speck, say around 50-60 grams worth.

In a big pot, we use our pasta pot, fry the bacon in some olive oil. Once crisp, add the carrot and celery, plus a couple of cloves of garlic. Roughly chop a brown onion and add that to the mix, followed by coarsely diced swede and white turnip – as I’ve said elsewhere where I come from what we call a swede in Australia is simply a turnip, and turnip a white turnip – you will need roughly the same amount of each as you had of carrot.

Add the swede and the turnip to the vegetable mix, stir, add the beans and a half glass of white cooking wine, followed by a 400g can of tomatoes and a chicken stock cube (or good quality chicken stock if you can get it – these little tubs of concentrated chicken stock are fine for this) .

Add a couple of bay leaves to the mix, then salt and pepper to taste, and water to cover, and leave to simmer for a couple of hours.

Check on it after a couple of hours and add more water if necessary. Chop up about a quarter of a cauliflower head into florets and add. If you feel it needs more tomato, add a spoon of tomato paste at this stage. Leave for about 20 minutes, add some shredded green cabbage and a couple of handfuls of pasta – you might need to add a little water at this stage and leave to cook until the pasta is ready.

Grate some parmesan, and serve the soup in bowls with some parmesan on top, plus a little parsley. Accompany it with buttered wholemeal toast and a glass of a chunky merlot.

As I said, not really Italian, but chunky and filling ...