Italian spring soup

New potatoes, chives and olive oil

I am happy that springtime seems to be giving way to summer, the days of fresh fruit are ahead of us. The farmers market opened yesterday, the slow start as we try to catch up to the rest of the country's growing season. Soon there will be peaches, tomatoes, beans, its going to be good. And the outdoor concerts, beach traffic, lackluster craft fairs and hot car seats that burn the backs of your legs... summer is the best.

New potatoes chives and garlic

Spring has been so enjoyable this year, with loads of tender vegetables, shoots and flowers. And am not quite ready to let it go. So I plan to fit a few more spring themed posts into the next week. Since its not really summer yet as far as the vegetables know.

I made this soup for my book club, all who are foodies, and everyone was surprised by the broth, as it is so simple it seems different and exotic. We probably all smelled of garlic afterwards! 

New potatoes and chives steamed for 8 minutes in olive oil.

My Italian Spring Soup was inspired by Marcella Hazan's Spring Vegetable Soup in The Essentials of Classic Italian Cooking. I don't claim to know better than her, but I made some changes, like adding asparagus and green onion, which is a good touch. And making it easier with frozen artichoke hearts. I did retain the simpleness of the broth, simply water with lemon juice added as the last thing. So bright, and full of clean flavors, surprisingly different.

Soup making with colorful potatoes

Easy prep for springtime soup

New potatoes have less starch than their larger cousins and hold together well in soup. They come in many shapes and colors. I found a charming mix of tiny blue, red and yellow potatoes. The color variation makes for a beautiful dish. 

Use what you can find, the red skinned ones are pretty, but the yellow have the most creamy texture.

A word to the wise. All the veggies begin as nice bright colors, once cooked they loose some of the vibrance. If served right away, all is colorful. The longer the soup sits in the pot waiting for your friends to arrive, the greens fade and fade. It is still delicious, and will recieve ohhs and ahhhs. 

Next time I make this for a party, I will add the final vegetables in a right-beofre-we-eat sort of way. To keep the asparagus and green peas more green.

Have more lemons on hand to finish the broth, mostly 1 lemon will be enough, I made a double recipe of soup and needed two whole lemons. If you taste the soup before you add the lemon juice, and then taste it after, it will become obvious if you want more lemon juice at that point. Or not. It comes across as bright tasting, not sour.

Everything gets more green

There are some either-or's in this recipe for easy spring conversions. green garlic, and spring onions if you have it. If you have garlic scapes some of them would be right at home here too.

Spring Italian Soup

servings for 4

Garlic, 2 tablespoons minced. or 1 head green garlic, chopped fine

4 tablespoon olive oil

1 pound new potatoes, sliced 1/4 inch thick

1 spring onion, white and green parts sliced fine. Or 4 scallions, sliced.

4 cups water
rind from parmesan cheese (optional)

1 handful frozen artichoke hearts.

1 bunch asparagus, about 8 ounces, 1 inch lengths sliced on the diagonal

3/4 teaspoon salt

1/2 cup peas (thawed if using frozen)

Juice of 1/2 lemon

Good quality Parmmigiano-Reggiano grated

Slice the potatoes and place into the soup pot. Add sliced onion, minced garlic and olive oil. Put the pot over high heat, for about 40 seconds, stirring often.

When the garlic is fragrant add the sliced potatoes begin to stick, cover the pot with a lid and turn down the heat to low.

Cook covered for about 8 minutes, lift the lid a few times to stir the potatoes, they may begin to stick on the bottom, check that they don't brown.

After 8 minutes, or if the vegetables stick too much to the pan, cover with water and scrape the bottom. First bring liquid just to a boil, then turn to a low simmer. 

Add the cheese rind, asparagus, artichokes, and salt. Keep the heat low to retain the tender flavor of the spring vegetables. After about 15 minutes at a low simmer, when the potatoes are fork tender, add the peas. Take off the heat, the peas will warm through with the residual heat. Add lemon juice to taste.

Serve in soup bowls with large amounts of grated Parmmigiano-Reggiano cheese and slices of good crusty bread. 

Serve with crunchy bread and lots of grated parm

Green Nettle Soup

Green garlic, Sorrel, Nettle

Early spring greens at Farmer's Markets feel like rare treasures after the gray winter. Nearly neon nettles, sorrel and garlicky bits. They are full of nutrients, good for waking up our bodies after months of seeming hibernation. Bright new green screams spring!

We ran into an early spring market on a Sunday Mother's day walk. Oh happy me when I spotted the nettles first thing. I would have to walk around with them all afternoon, but I had to have them! I am into wild food, and finding it myself is fun. People say nettles grow EVERYWHERE. But they don't seem to grow where I live, so I was happy to purchase them. With sorrel and green garlic we would have a week of spring green dishes to be ready for the season.

Stinging Nettle warning

When handling stinging nettles, people say you shouldn't. The thoughtful farmers put a sticker on the nettle bag in case it was new news to somebody. Using tongs or wearing gloves is a good idea. Personally, I don't often get stung by the nettles. I find that when picked up gently by the underside of the leaf I don't need to wear gloves. The stingy parts are on the stems, and top of the leaf. Try at your own risk, although it helps to go at them with confidence and a light touch.

When cooked, they loose all the sting and turn into an edible green which is much better than spinach. They can be boiled, blanched, sauteed...when I worked at Tartine we would pick nettle leaves off the stems and sink the fresh tender leaves into deep quiches to cook inside the beaten egg and cream. I steamed some nettle to make a pesto. And the remainder of it was used to make this soup.

Green Nettle soup in blender

It is a unbelievably green soup and delicious. It tastes as bright as it looks and I felt positively pure and healthy after eating it. A lot of people like to add cream to their nettle soup, which you could do. I like it pure and plain









Green Nettle Soup

3 green garlic stalks
1 yellow onion
drizzle of olive oil
1 pint water or vegetable stock
nettles
1/2 tsp salt
4 or 5 sorrel leaves (or juice from half a lemon)

Slice the green garlic and onion, cook on medium heat with the olive oil in a soup pot. When softened pour in the water and bring to a boil. It is difficult to measure how many nettles are needed, I added enough nettles to fill the water, so they were submerged but dense. Simmer the nettles for 7 to 10 minutes, thicker stalks will need the longer cooking time.

Ladle the entire soup contents into a blender. Add salt and sorrel leaves or lemon juice. Blend the soup to a puree, this may take the blender a minute or two. It is amazingly green and mine was a nice consistency right away. Check the seasoning and add salt or more lemon if it is bland.

Pour into soup dishes and enjoy.

Lazy Slow Cooker Soup

Recently I have rediscovered my slow cooker. It languishes on the uppermost shelf for moths at a time, until again I am in need of its all-day-long-tenderizing-ability. And then I think, why do I ever forget about this, again? This time is was because I was at the end of a springtime cold which had drained all my energy and we had nothing in the fridge. The only way I know how to use a slow cooker is the lazy way.

two handfuls of dry cranberry beans. 2 bay leaves, thyme, and water.

Lazy chopped carrot, celery and garlic.

2 handfuls of brown rice 

A glug of olive oil, for flavor building.

 I added a handful of red lentils, smoked paprika and my magic ingredient is pulp leftover from the juicer which I keep in the freezer for soup making. It has a bunch of fiber, and thickens soups in a really nice way. The trick to slow cooker soups is to let it go for a long time. All day while you are at work, or even overnight. 8 hours is better than 6, especially with dry beans. The rice cooks and then sort of puffs up into chewy bits which are closer to barley, its quite nice. It is quite beautiful and transformative the way everything melts together.

Lazy Slow Cooker Soup

2 handfuls dry cranberry beans
2 handfuls brown rice
1 handful red lentils
3 garlic cloves, smashed
3 carrots, chopped
3 celery stalks, chopped
1 teaspoon thyme
1 teaspoon smoked paprika
good pinch of salt
2 bay leaves
a glug of olive oil
1 handful veggie pulp from juicing (optional)
4 - 6 cups Water

Put everything together and cover with water. Cook on the high or medium slow cooker heat for many many many hours, about 8.