Cooler Days mean soup and nothing better than a scrumptious Italian Ribolitta – Full of vegetables and beans and finished with chunks of bread. It’s a meal within a meal – but for us it’s lunch.
La Ribolitta (Thick Tuscan Bean Soup)
½ cup good extra virgin olive oil, 2 onions finely diced, 6 cloves garlic, crushed, 3 sticks celery, diced finely, 2 carrots, peeled and diced finely, 400g tin whole peeled tomatoes, 250g cavolo nero or cabbage, sliced , 400 gram tin cannellini beans, 1 cup red wine, 2 litres chicken stock, 100 grams stale ciabatta bread, 3-4 thyme stems, parsley
In a large saucepan sauté the onion and garlic in a little of the olive oil until soft and fragrant. Add the celery and carrots. Cook for 5 minutes to soften the vegetables. Stir in the beans, tomatoes and cabbage leaves. Cook until the cabbage starts to wilt. Add the wine, chicken stock and thyme. Simmer gently for about 40 minutes. Add the bread to the pan. If it is very fresh dry it out in the oven to prevent it breaking up. Remove the pan from the heat and leave to rest for 30-40 minutes. Serve hot but not boiling drizzled with extra virgin olive oil and chopped parsley.
I finally managed to get some lamb mince – I’m getting used to new supermarkets but it is frustrating and annoying when you have to order something so basic as lamb mince or chicken frames for making stock. It was worth persevering because this Moussaka is seriously good. I made an extra dish to give away – many people are asking are we gaining weight here…. Don’t worry I am making our meals in small sizes.
Mousaka
1 kg potatoes, par-boiled 2 eggplants- aubergine, sliced 7mm thick, ½ cup olive oil, 1 large onion, 4 cloves garlic crushed, 1 carrot , 1 stick celery , 500 grams minced lamb, ½ teaspoon ground cinnamon. ½ teaspoon ground allspice, 1/3 cup tomato paste, ½ cup red wine, 400 gram can peeled tomatoes Sauce :100 grams butter, ½ cup flour, 1 litre milk, ¼ teaspoon freshly ground nutmeg, 150 grams grated parmesan cheese, 3 egg yolks, 1 preserved lemon, flesh removed and diced finely, ½ cup olive oil
Combine the oil and garlic, brush the eggplant slices on each side. Grill on each side in batches until golden. In a food processor combine the onion, garlic, carrot and celery. Pulse until chopped finely. Heat the remaining oil in a frying pan and add the vegetables – called sofrito. cook until soft, Add the lamb and the spices and cook until well browned. Add the tomato paste, wine and tomatoes. Bring to the boil and simmer slowly until the liquid is evaporated and the sauce is very thick. Sauce : Melt the butter in a saucepan, add the flour and cook for 1 minute until frothy. Pour in the milk and stir until thick and just boiling. Remove from the heat and stir through the nutmeg, parmesan cheese and egg yolks.. Season with salt and pepper. Slice the potatoes into 7mm slices. Grease a 23x28cm baking dish. Line the base with overlapping slices of ½ the eggplant and all the potato. Pour over ¾ cup of the sauce, all the lamb mixture, remaining eggplant slices, then the remaining sauce. Top with fresh bay leaves and bake at 180 Celsius for 30- 40 minutes or until browned. Stand for 30 minutes.
Travel Memories
Cappadoccia is always so Special
The Cappadocia region is a huge contrast from the blue coastal Turkey and here the soft pinks, creams and sand colours accentuate the unusual landscape. It’s a semi-arid region in central Turkey and is known for its distinctive whimsical fairy chimneys and peculiar rock formations, tall cone-shaped rocks cluster in valleys called Monks Valley, Red Valley, Chicken Valley and many more, even throughout the touristy town of Göreme. These strange formations exist because of volcanic eruptions and were carved beautifully by the wind and erosion.
Cappadocia’s magic includes caves everywhere, inside the weird rock formations. The caves were built many centuries ago and some are still inhabited. Today lots have been given creative, imaginative, ingenious make overs and have been turned into rare unique hotels. We stayed at Hasan’s nephew’s cave hotel called Asawari suites. His love of Owls are everywhere and 4 days sleeping in our vast bedrooms was a relief. The caves stay cool and feel like a natural air conditioner. Eating our delicious Turkish breakfasts each morning of tomatoes, cucumbers, cheeses, olives fresh bread along with baked eggs, pancakes with rose jam and Turkish coffee, outside on a high terrace each morning was a real treat, but sleeping in comfortable temperatures was another.
Cappadocia shares its villages with many underground cities. These were created many centuries ago and some of them are more than ten levels deep and are connected to each other via tunnels. Our 3 days are like a mystery tour and I am sure my group think ‘What Next ‘ But what I love most is finding the unexpected and as we spied bread being loaded on a tractor trailor we had to stop. The most delicious flat bread was being made by women – some preparing the dough, others shaping and more baking the round bread in a wood fired oven and then cooking their beans in clay pots in the discarded ashes. To see this group carrying on their traditional role of bread making in literally a shed, baking in a very old oven and today transporting the bread by an open trailor on the back of a tractor (where the only man was responsible) was for me a highlight. They were generous with the bread and of course what tastes better than warm fresh bread straight from the oven.
I hope you are all watching Jamie Oliver on Wednesday nights. I don’t usually watch any foodie programmes but he is cooking up a treat using everyday ingredients.
Stay Well xxx Jude