This potato salad recipe is a bit like a Nourishified stuffed potato. It’s got all the fixins you love — sour cream, bacon, chives, and even goat cheese — but in proportions that amp up flavor without making you feel like you just ate a house. Take it to your Fourth of July picnic, or serve it with barbecued ribs and Slow Cooked Molasses-Honey Baked Beans.
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Fregola is an Italian rolled pasta similar to Israeli couscous, and it’s wonderfully toothsome in this summer salad. Think of it as a new twist on old-school pasta salad. If you can’t find fregola (or wanted to go gluten free), millet would be a great substitute. Top with a few chunks of good quality tuna packed in olive oil (unless you want to keep it vegan) and you’ve got a nice, hearty, nourishing meal.
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Ribollita is a classic Italian recipe that puts day-old bread to delicious use. Not only is this soup easy and flavorful and light and hearty all at the same time … it’s even better made the day before and reheated.
2-½ tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil, divided
1 cup carrots, sliced
1 cup onion, chopped
½ cup celery, sliced
3 sprigs thyme
4 cloves garlic, minced
3 cups chipped Swiss chard
3 cups chopped kale
3 cups water
3 cups low-sodium chicken or vegetable stock
¼ cup tomato puree
1 teaspoon sugar
sea salt
¼ teaspoon red pepper flakes
1 (14.5-ounce) can diced tomatoes
1 (19-ounce) can cannellini beans, rinsed and drained
12 ounces day-old Italian or French bread, torn into 1-inch pieces
Heat 1-1/2 teaspoons oil in a Dutch oven over medium heat. Add carrots and next 4 ingredients (through garlic) and cook 5 minutes, stirring frequently, until onion is tender. Add chard and next 8 ingredients (through tomatoes) and stir to combine. Bring to a boil, reduce heat and simmer 45 minutes.
Place 1/3 cup beans in a bowl and mash with a fork until fairly smooth. Add mashed beans, remaining beans, and bread to soup. Cook 5 minutes until heated through. Ladle soup into bowls. Drizzle remaining 2 tablespoons oil over top of soup.
Serves 8
I’ve been leaning more and more towards eggs as a quick meal, especially with the girls laying regularly nowadays. This is one of my simple go-to’s–meaty roasted asparagus spears topped with a luscious poached egg and crispy prosciutto. If you want to go meatless, saute some mushrooms and shallots in lieu of the prosciutto … mmmm.
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If you rifled through the Campbell’s soup labels I collected as a kid, you’d notice a heavy concentration of Beef and Barley Stew labels. It was my favorite soup. By far. Now, though, I’ve moved so far away from processed foods that it (sadly) just tastes salty and gummy to me. I’ve been meaning to concoct a homemade replacement for years, but somehow have never gotten around to it. Early in the new year, though, I had a pot of beef stock leftover from the holidays, some stew meat and carrots from my CSA, and an expanding enthusiasm for kohlrabi. It was time. If you can’t find kohlrabi, substitute potatoes, or another root vegetable like turnips or rutabaga.
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I can’t tell you how much I love this salad. Butter lettuce has a delicate, sweet crunch to it, and its crevices catch the nubbins in the vinaigrette perfectly. It’s crazy simple, and it’s the perfect accompaniment to Frittatas, Soft Scrambled Eggs, Simplest Roast Chicken, Crispy Curry Quinoa Cakes … you name it.
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Take that name to mean anything you please … whether you make this soup out of chicken stock, turkey stock or vegetable stock, you can bet it’ll be scrumptious. What elevates this above a standard chicken (turkey … veggie) noodle soup are the copious amounts of carrots and celery, the beefy lentils, and the fun little topping of sauteed root veggies and sausage. PS – you can make this vegetarian and still have a super hearty soup.
1 quart chicken, turkey or veggie stock
1 onion, peeled and sliced lengthwise into 1/2-inch wedges
6 medium carrots, peeled and cut on a bias into 1-inch pieces
5 celery stalks, cut on a bias into 1-inch pieces
1 tablespoon extra virgin olive oil
2 turnips, peeled and cut into a 1/2-inch dice (want to see a video of how to dice? Click here)
1 rutabaga, peeled and cut into a 1/2-inch dice
6 ounces loose Italian pork or chicken sausage
Sea salt and freshly ground pepper to taste
1-1/2 cups sprouted lentils (or regular green lentils cooked until just tender)
2 cups cooked farfalle pasta (cooked 2 minutes less than instructed cooking time)
1 cup shredded chicken or turkey (optional)
In a large pot, bring stock, onion, carrots and celery up to a boil. Lower heat and simmer for 20 minutes.
While stock is simmering, heat olive oil in a large saute pan over medium-high heat and swirl to coat. Add turnips, rutabaga and sausage to the pan and toss to coat with olive oil. Saute, turning occasionally and breaking up the sausage with a stiff spatula, for 12-15 minutes, until vegetables are browned on the outside and tender throughout. Season to taste with salt and pepper.
Add the lentils, pasta and turkey to the soup pot and simmer for 3 minutes.
Serve each bowl of soup topped with a generous heap of root veggies and sausage.
Serves 6-8
Note: It’s super easy to make this soup vegetarian, and with the pasta and lentils, it’s still quite hearty. Just use veggie broth and omit the sausage and shredded meat.
If you’ve got a leftover ham bone in the fridge (or if you can talk your butcher out of one), this is the soup you want to make. And, trust me, take the extra hour to make the Awesome Veggie Broth from scratch … it’s worth it.
2 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil
2 cups diced leek
3 cups diced carrot
2 cups diced celery
sea salt and freshly ground black pepper
2 pounds split peas
1 whole ham bone with meat attached
4 quarts Awesome Veggie Broth
Heat olive oil in a large pot over medium heat and sauté leek, carrot and celery for 10-12 minutes, until softened and just starting to brown. Season lightly with salt and pepper.
Add split peas, ham bone and veggie broth, raise heat to medium-high and bring to a boil. Reduce heat, skim any foam and fat from the surface, and simmer for 60-90 minutes (peas should be tender and soft, but not completely disintegrated). Remove ham bone and let cool enough to handle. Pull off meat in chunks as large as you want and stir into soup. Season with additional salt and pepper if desired.
Makes 3-4 quarts of soup
* This soup freezes very well. Bring to room temperature, then ladle into freezer safe zip top bags and lay flat in the freezer.
Make this awesome veggie broth any time you’ve got a bunch of scraps in the fridge or cluttering up the counter. Amazingly easy, and so full of flavor.
8 whole cloves
2 small onions, peel left on and halved (or 1 large onion cut into quarters)
12 cups various veggies, roughly chopped (I like a mix of aromatics like leeks and fennel fronds, leafy greens like kale and chard and lettuce, umami-enriching mushroom stems, and standards that are full of flavor like carrot and celery)
6 quarts cold water
1 bay leaf
12 black peppercorns
1-1/2 teaspoons sea salt
Poke 2 cloves into the cut side of each onion half. Place onion halves cut side down in a large pot over medium heat and sear for 5 minutes, until well-charred. Add the remaining veggies to the pot. Pour in water, add bay leaf, peppercorns and salt, raise heat to medium-high and bring to a boil.
Reduce heat and simmer for 45 minutes. Strain and season with additional salt and pepper if desired.
Makes roughly 4 quarts stock
Perked up with chard and Italian sausage, this white bean soup recipe straddles the line between fresh and green and rich and hearty. So much so, in fact, that it would be perfectly appropriate in any season.
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