When those first really cold days of the season sneak up on you, it is a little hard to shake off the chill.  I came up with this recipe after a full day at work wishing that I had worn wool socks and boots (instead of no socks and ballet flats) and a warm sweater (instead of a cotton long sleeve shirt).  Why must I be a slave to fashion?  By the time I got home, walked the dog, and made it to the grocery store, I thought I would never feel warm again.  On this kind of day, you have to warm up from the inside out.  You just have to drink tea and eat soup.

As I previously mentioned, I had already worked all day, walked the dog, and gone to the store – I was cold, and hungry, and getting crankier by the minute!  A slow cooked soup was out.  I needed something that would be ready quickly, but would have the same soul-warming effect of my mom’s chicken noodle soup.  To help me achieve this, I turned to ready-to-use canned beans and prepared chicken stock, two ingredients that always help quick-cooking food taste slow.  I also grabbed the hot Italian sausage because I needed heat in both temperature and spice to shake this chill!

The nutritional and delicious recipe below will warm you up, please your doctor, feed an army, and taste even better the next day.  Grab a loaf of your favorite crusty bread and get ready to feel the heat!

Ingredients:

• 1 lb. hot Italian sausage
• 1 large yellow onion, diced
• 3-4 carrots, peeled and cut into 1/4 inch rings
• 4-5 cloves garlic, minced
• A dozen Crimini  mushrooms, sliced
• 4 cups kale, cleaned and roughly chopped
• 8 cups or two containers chicken stock (I prefer organic and sodium free so I can salt to taste)
• 2 15 oz. cans of cannellini beans
• 1/4 lb. bow tie pasta
• 3 tbs. olive oil
• 1/2 tsp. dried thyme
• 1 tsp. dried oregano
• Salt and red pepper flakes to taste
• Roughly grated Parmigiano Reggiano cheese to taste (for garnish)

I a heavy bottom, large soup pot, heat the olive oil over medium high heat.  Remove the sausage from its casing and add it to the pot, pressing it flat.  Leave it alone on one side, and then flip it when it is brown.  As the sausage browns on the second side, use a wooden spoon to break it up into bite sized pieces.

Add the onions, carrots, and garlic to the pot.  Season with salt, red pepper (optional), thyme and oregano.  Stir frequently until the vegetables begin to soften, about five minutes. Add the mushrooms and saute for another minute.   Add all of the chicken stock and cover and cook for twenty minutes over medium-low heat.

Add the kale to the soup.  Re-cover and cook for another fifteen minutes.  Strain and rinse the beans.  Add the beans and the pasta and cook until the pasta is al dente, about fifteen more minutes over medium-low heat.  Taste for seasoning.

Serve in big bowls garnished with Parmigiano Reggiano cheese and warm, crusty bread.  Feel the warmth and enjoy!

Go ahead, say it: “Vichyssoise” – sounds fancy and French, I know – but for a fancy sounding soup, this one is perhaps the simplest recipe we’ve posted yet. When making Vichyssoise, there are basically 4 ingredients – if you don’t count the salt and pepper (white pepper in this case), plus the cooking process is really easy too.

The soup is best served chilled in my opinion, but you can also serve it hot, but I’d omit the cream/milk in that case.  Another note on the soup is to puree it in your blender for a few minutes to ensure that you make it really smooth, giving it a really silky texture.  The starch in the potatoes will aid this process, but you’ll like the results for sure.  It’s one of those soups that you can make restaurant quality texture wise without much work at all.

Another great aspect of this soup is that it’s perfect for spring.  I like to make it with the first local new potatoes that you get at the market.  Leeks are also a good spring vegetable, and the combination is best served by this soup in my opinion.  Of course, I’d also highly recommend a homemade chicken broth if you have one available, but store bought is ok too, just make sure that it’s a low sodium broth.  Here’s how simple it can be:

• Around 6-8 medium sized new potatoes (the ones with the red skin) – Peeled and quartered
• 2 large or 3 medium leeks – white and light green parts only – trimmed, washed and cut into half/quarter moon shapes
• 1 quart (~4 cups) chicken stock
• 1/4 cup light cream or 1/2 cup whole milk (optional and I recommend NOT using if you’re serving the soup hot)
• 1 clove garlic – lightly crushed and peeled (optional)
• Salt to taste
• Small dash of white pepper (1/2 tsp. but you can approximate)
• Croutons – Crouton recipe here or here with Aimee’s Caesar Salad Recipe (optional)

Again, a totally easy preparation.  Start with peeling and chopping the potatoes. Heat the stock in a heavy bottomed pot until almost boiling, then add a few pinches of salt.  Add the potatoes and chopped leeks to the stock.  Add the garlic clove as well and let the mixture come to a boil.  Cook over medium/low heat for 15-20 minutes or until the potatoes are tender but not complete mush.

While the soup ingredients are cooking, prepare the croutons at this point to serve with the finished soup (see the other posts liked to above!!!).

Remove the garlic clove (or leave it if you want your soup garlicky).  Transfer the mixture to your blender and puree for 3-5 minutes, or until very smooth (taste it, you’ll know what I mean).  Add the white pepper and adjust the seasoning as necessary.  If you’re serving the soup hot, go ahead and plate it now and top with a few croutons.  If you’re serving it chilled (I recommend it!!), place the soup in the freezer or fridge until cold, then serve.  Top with croutons and enjoy!

Stew is food for the soul, and that is exactly what I was after with this dish.  I don’t make stew very often because it is so time consuming, and with life as hectic as it is, most of my cooking these days happens about thirty minutes before I am ready to eat.  But tonight I was cooking a meal for a good friend of mine who could use a little boost in spirits.  The meal was for the next night, so I had plenty of time to prepare a slow-cooked pot of food without the hasty influence of hunger.  You just can’t rush soul nourishment, and no dish can warm a person’s being any better than stew.  And, if you ask me, the earthy, rich flavor of lamb makes the best stew.

So, knowing the dish would be done well past my normal bedtime, I started preparing this dish about seven, after I had gotten home from work, walked the dog, and eaten take-out Thai food.  I had solicited Adrian’s help, so he had gone to the store and cubed the meat by the time I got home.  For stew, you want meat with some fat on it, so a shoulder cut is great.  Even lamb neck pieces can make great stew.  A leg of lamb is a little lean, and tends to dry out a bit, so while it is delicious for roasting, it is not the best cut for this preparation.  We bought arm chops and cut them into cubes.  We browned up the bones with the rest of the meat and cooked it in the stew to add richness.  Before I packaged it up to send off to my friend’s house I removed the bones, which were clean of all their meat.

Since I was sending this stew off as a meal to go, I decided to serve it with quinoa, a nutty, extraordinarily nutritious grain.  I also prepared a spinach salad with dried cranberries and crumbled goat cheese for a little acidity to balance out the rich favor of the stew.  I threw in a baguette to complete the meal.  Next time your soul needs a little lift, or you know someone who does, give this delicious stew recipe a try.

Ingredients:

• 1 ½ lbs. lamb stew meat, cut into 1 in. cubes
• 4 cups chicken stock (or lamb stock, if you can get it!)
• 2 cups of dry red wine
• 4 large carrots, peeled and cut into 1 in. pieces
• 1 large yellow onion, very roughly chopped
• 1 10 oz. bag of pearl onions, blanched and peeled

• 5-6 cloves of garlic, minced
• 3 Turkish bay leaves
• 1 tsp. fresh thyme leaves or ½ tsp. dry thyme leaves
• 1 tbsp. plus 1 tsp. ground cumin
• ½ tbsp. smoked paprika
• 5-7 threads of saffron
• 3 tbsp. all-purpose flour
• 2 tbsp. olive oil
• 2 tbsp. unsalted butter
• Salt and pepper to taste

Begin by patting the meat dry with paper towels.  The meat will not brown properly if it has too much moisture.  Season the cubes with salt and pepper, and then dust them with the flour, 1 tbsp. of cumin, and the paprika.  I do this part in a brown paper bag so I can gently shake the meat to coat it evenly. Then I shake off the excess flour before I brown the meat.

In a heavy bottomed Dutch oven, heat the butter and olive oil over medium-high heat.  When the pot is hot enough so that it begins lightly smoking, put one layer of the meat in the pot.  Leave the meat alone to brown for about three to four minutes before turning.  Brown on both sides and then put aside.  Repeat this process as necessary until all of the meat is brown.

Remove all but one or so tablespoons of remaining fat from the pan and reduce the heat to medium.  Add the chopped onions, remaining cumin, saffron, thyme, bay leaves, and a pinch of salt and sauté for a few minutes until the onions begin to soften.  Add the garlic and carrots and sauté another few minutes.  Add the red wine and scrape up all of the bits on the bottom of the pot.  Let the wine cook down over medium heat for about five minutes.

Return the meat to the pot and add the chicken stock, which should cover the meat.  Bring the stock to a boil and then reduce the heat to a simmer.  Place a lid on the pot and let it cook for 2 ½ to 3 hours, or until the sauce has thickened and the meat falls apart.  Taste for salt and remove bay leaves and bones, if you used them.  Serve immediately, or refrigerate it for up to a week and reheat when you are ready.  The flavor just gets better when it has a chance to sit.  Serves 6.

Clam chowder is a New England dish that has made a national debut.  Even in July in San Diego, I would be willing to bet that you wouldn’t have to walk very far to find a seafood restaurant that serves clam chowder.  Granted, you might not be treated to the same charming description of why their “chowdah” is the very best in the “greatah Bahston Areah”, but you will most likely be satisfied.  It wasn’t until I lived in Boston, however, that I discovered fish chowder, and in the years that I have been living here, I have come to appreciate fish chowder more than its creamier, more commercialized cousin.

It is an unspoken rule that fish chowder has a lighter broth than clam chowder.  Something about a clam is able to stand up to a broth that is almost as thick as pudding in consistency, and this is often the kind of chowder served in restaurants.  Fish chowder, however, is more delicate and subtle in its decadence.  It typically is served in a much thinner, lighter broth which I find more appetizing and better suited for an entree serving size.  I also love making fish chowder at home because it is so easy!  The batch I prepared for the recipe here took 30 minutes, almost exactly!  That wouldn’t be the case if I were scrubbing shells and chopping Quahogs.

Ingredients

• 1 lb. fresh haddock fillet, skinned with bones removed
• 2 small Yukon gold potatoes, peeled and chopped into 1/2 inch cube
• 1 yellow onion, chopped
• 1 carrot, finely chopped
• 1 stalk of celery, chopped
• 3 cloves of garlic, minced
• 1 tsp. fresh or 1/2 tsp. dry thyme
• 3 tbs. butter
• 2tbs. flour
• 3 cups seafood stock
• 2 1/2 cups milk
• Salt and pepper to taste

In a large, heavy bottom pot, melt the butterover medium heat.  Add the onions, potatoes, carrots, celery, garlic, and thyme.  Season generously with salt and pepper.  Let the vegetables soften for about 15 minutes, or until the potatoes are near tender.  Add the flour and stir to coat the vegetables and cook for one more minute.  Add the stock and milk and let it come to a soft boil, stirring occasionally to prevent the milk from burning on the bottom, and then reduce the heat to low.

Cut the fillet into thirds.  The pieces will break up as they cook.  Add them to the creamy stock and cook for about 7-10 more minutes, just until the fish turns opaque and begins to fall apart.  With a wooden spoon, break up the fish into bite size pieces.  Serve immediately.

Serves 4.

Though I don’t watch the Food Network all that much (I tend to like the shows that get canceled, like ‘Molto Mario’).  There is a show that I’ve been liking of late – Jamie Oliver’s ‘Jamie at Home’.  The show involves Jamie at his awesome looking house, which is surrounded by gardens with vegetables growing everywhere.  Unfortunately, the show airs on Saturday mornings at 7:30am, a time that I’m typically in bed (along with most of the rest of the world).  So I ended up with the cookbook of the same name, and I’ve been a big fan of how it’s put together which is by seasons and vegetables that Jamie grows.

The first recipe that jumped out at me was the awesome looking onion soup recipe that was a bit different from the traditional French variety, but with all of the awesome, savory elements that you want with onion soup.  Cooking the onions for over an hour over low heat makes them become super soft, sweet and delicious.  This variation of the dish also uses a bunch of sage and cheddar cheese, instead of Gruyere.  All is all though, an excellent dish for a cool spring day – total comfort food here:

I like the idea of using a few different types of onions: red, yellow, white, shallots and leeks.  Turns out awesome!

Ingredients:

• A bunch of onions: I used 1 red, 1 yellow, 1 white, 3 leeks (white parts only) and 2 medium shallots – all chopped roughly (see picture)
• A handful of fresh sage, probably around 10-15 leaves – chopped + 6 whole leaves reserved for garnish
• 4 cups chicken stock (or beef, but I used chicken)
• 4-5 cloves garlic – chopped
• 6 slices good crusty bread – sourdough works great here
• ~1 1/2 cups sharp cheddar cheese – grated
• Worcestershire sauce
• 2 Tbsp. good butter
• olive oil

Method:

This is pretty simple, but being patient cooking the onions is key.  Start with the chopped sage and garlic in a large dutch oven or heavy bottomed pan that has a good tight fitting lid.  Over medium heat, add the butter and olive oil and then add the sage and garlic.  Let the garlic cook but not brown.  Add in the onions and turn the heat down a little (to low-medium).  Season them with salt and bit of pepper

Cover the pot, but leave it just a little bit ajar.  Cook the onions for around an hour, stirring every 5-10 minutes to make sure the onions aren’t burning or coloring at all.  After about an hour, take the lid off and cook for another 20 minutes.  Add the stock into the onions and bring to a boil.  Reduce the heat and let the pot simmer for around 15 minutes.

Meanwhile, preheat your oven to 500F (max temp) and prepare the bread by toasting it a little bit…or if it’s stale, just use it as is.

You want to cut it into shapes that fit into your serving bowls.  The bowls you use should be oven proof!!!  Ramekins or soup crocks work perfectly. Take the reserved sage leaves and sprinkle them with a little olive oil.

Ladle some of the soup into your bowls and place a piece of the bread on top of each.  Sprinkle the bowls with a little cheese and a whole sage leaf.  Finish the bowls with a few drops of Worcestershire sauce and throw them into the oven.  They’ll be done in 5 minutes or so, when the cheese starts to just brown.

Serves 6

I have to admit that the inspiration for this one was random.  I have never made Italian Wedding soup before, and it is not a tradition in my family.  In fact, I am not even sure whether or not it is traditionally served at Italian weddings, because I have never been to one.  To be perfectly honest, I am not even Italian, as you can tell by the undeniable waspiness of my last name.  But you guys know that I wouldn’t share this with you if it wasn’t good…and this was good.

The idea popped into my subconscience about a week after I had seen both Ina Garten and Rachel Ray make Italian Wedding soup in the same afternoon.  The Contessa’s looked particularly appealing and easy to make, so I thought I would go for it.  Since I had seen the show over a week before, the exact process she used was hazy for me, so I decided to just give it a shot.  I used turkey for the meatballs instead of chicken because the ground turkey looked better at my local butcher.  I guess I got lucky on this one because it was delicious.  It was comfortable and salty while still light.  I bought a whole grain sour dough loaf from the Hi-Rise Bread Company, sliced it and rubbed it with a clove of garlic, which was all the accompaniment I needed to make this a highly affordable, satiating meal.

Here is how it went:

Meatballs:

• 1 pound of ground turkey (or chicken)
• 1 egg
• 1/4 cup bread crumbs
• 1 clove of garlic, pressed.
• 2 tablespoons of fresh chopped parsley
• 3 tablespoons shredded Parmesan cheese
• 1/2 teaspoon red pepper flakes
• Salt and Pepper

Preheat your oven to 375 degrees.  Combine all of the above ingredients thoroughly, but avoid over-mixing which could make the meatballs tough.  Using a teaspoon, form rounded spoonfuls of the meat mixture into bite sized balls and place on a non-stick baking sheet.  Bake for 20-25 minutes, or until they are golden brown and firm all the way through.

The Soup:

• 1 large yellow onion, diced
• 2 carrots, diced

• 3 stalks of celery, diced
• 2 tablespoons butter
• 2 tablespoons olive oil
• Salt and pepper
• 1 cup dry white wine
• 4 cups chicken stock (I used homemade which we had left over from the last time Adrian roasted chickens and I think this made a big difference!)
• 1/2 cup Ancini de Pepe pasta (the tiny balls)
• 4 cups of bite-sized, washed, fresh spinach leaves
• Parmesan cheese to taste

Heat a large soup or stock pot over medium heat.  Add the butter, olive oil, and onions, carrots, and celery.  Salt and add red pepper to taste.  Cook the vegtables until they soften, but they shouldn’t brown (about twelve minutes).  Add the wine and let it reduce by half or so.  This adds good depth of flavor and acidity.  Add the chicken stock, the pasta, and the meatballs.  With about five or six minutes remaining until the pasta is cooked, add the spinach.  Taste for salt content.  Garnish with Parmesan cheese and serve immediately with big chunks of bread.

Serves at least six – I was eating it all week!

I know, sounds sort of weird I thought too, but this spontaneous invention tasted absolutely delicious.  Over the holidays, I was lucky enough to head back to San Francisco, my old stomping grounds.  One night we ventured into the Mission neighborhood and had dinner with some of Aimee’s family at Frjtz.  Frjtz is really a Belgian/French casual dining restaurant serving excellent Fries (chips really), crepes and best of all as I learned, Mussels.

So I spent a lot of time growing up on the Maine coast, so I’ve eaten my fair share of mussels – but these mussels were out of hand.  Steamed in a coconut milk broth with lemongrass, they were hot and savory and delicious.  I set out to recreate the flavors of this dish with my own spin, adding a few flavors but mostly changing the base of the dish into a vegetable soup.  What was produced was just as delicious, though you can expect those mussels to show up here at some point as well, they were too good not to try a re-creation.

Beets are awesome.  One of the last time I cooked with them, I made red beet bruschetta with caraway seeds and Parmesan.  Not only were my hands and fingernails pink for days, but my whole digestive system was affected too, as you might imagine.  These golden beets I used in this dish are sweet mild and delicious.  The consistency of beets lends itself perfectly for a soup – a puree of beets mixed with some coconut milk, leeks and other root vegetables has a very silky texture, as I found out.  Almost the perfect soup for winter warmth on a cold night.  Here’s how it went down:

Ingredients:

• 2 medium/large golden beets – peeled and cubed
• 1 large yellow onion – coarse diced
• 2 leeks, white parts only – halved and cut into half moons
• 2 large carrots – cubed
• 3 cloves garlic – minced
• 1 small piece of ginger – peeled and diced
• Lemongrass – about 6 inches of the stalk – end cut off, quartered lengthwise and cut very thin
• 1 can (lite) coconut milk, a little more to finish with too is really good!
• 2 cups stock – vegetable or chicken works
• 2-3 Tbsp. Madras curry powder – to taste
• Pinch of nutmeg
• A few basil leaves (Thai basil preferred!!) – Chiffonade
• Salt
• Vegetable oil to coat pan

Start by prepping your veg.  Heat a pan over medium-low heat and add the oil.  Sautee the vegetables, adding the onions first (SALT), let the onions sweat, then add the carrots, leeks, basil, ginger and garlic, then the beets and lemongrass almost immediately after and a bit more salt.  Let the vegetables sautee for a few minutes, but do not let them brown at all.

Add in the stock, coconut milk and the curry powder and cover the pan.  Let the vegetables cook until they are soft.  Add the nutmeg and a little more curry powder and transfer the mixture to a blender and puree until very smooth.  If you don’t attain the right consistency, run the mixture through a fine sieve.  Garnish with a little basil and serve.

Serves 4 (or more)

Few things in the culinary kingdom are better than mushrooms in my mind – especially when you slow cook them over low heat to get all of their moisture out and concentrate their flavor.  Comforting to no end – especially when paired with a good salad and some bread to soak it all up.

Trust me, this soup is not your traditional out-of-the-can variety cream of mushroom.  It is also not over the top creamy, which I like.  It’s focus is on the mushroom flavor, as it should be in my opinion.  This recipe is one that I owe to Elise over at Simply Recipes – I’ve adapted it a little, but the base is from her site (which I discovered actually appears to be a Wolfgang Puck recipe).  When I was initially searching for a mushroom soup recipe, I decided to try hers because of her inclusion of lemon juice – which I though would pair very well with the flavor of the mushrooms and add something extra that other recipes lacked.  It worked too – you couldn’t really taste the acid of the lemon per se, but there was certainly something there that was bringing the whole soup to life.

I decided to use Crimini mushrooms in this soup, but the better the mushrooms you can gather, the better your soup!  If you can afford it, shitakes, chanterelles or ever porcinis would only enhance this soups flavor – but I was cooking on somewhat of a budget being holiday time, so I decided to go with a more affordable mushroom.

To make this recipe you will need either a food processor or a blender, and both will work (see my instructions below).  A great accompaniment to this soup (a topper) would be garlic croutons from Aimee’s Caeser Salad recipe, and some parsley. Enjoy!

• 1 lb. Mushrooms – A combination of Criminis, Shitakes, Portobellos, Chanterelles, Porcinis (I used all criminis (baby portobello), which is totally fine)
• 3 medium sized shallots – minced or grated
• 1 clove garlic – finely minced or crushed into a paste
• 5-6 thyme sprigs – leaves removed and chopped
• 2 bay leaves
• Juice of 1 lemon
• 1/2 tsp. lemon zest
• 2-3 c. chicken stock (homemade preferable) – amount depends on the consistency you like your soup to be – for a thicker soup, use less stock
• 1 1/2 – 2 c. Cream (half and half or heavy cream or both)
• 2 Tbsp. unsalted butter
• Salt and pepper
• chopped parsley for garnish (optional)

Start out by prepping the mushrooms:

• Criminis (baby bellas): clean any dirt off the mushrooms (try not to run them under water though!!!) and trim the ends of the stems off, then quarter them.
• Shitakes: remove the stems and quarter the caps.
• Porcinis: clean off any dirt and quarter them, stem and all.
• Chanterelles: cut them lengthwise into quarters.
• Portobellos: stems should already be removed – cut the caps into 1/2 inch strips and then half the strips.

**Food processor method**: Once you have your mushrooms prepped: load them up into you food processor with the juice of half of the lemon and chop until they are the consistency of a fine dice. (see the ‘no food processor method’ below)

Meanwhile, in a heavy bottomed pot, melt the butter over medium heat, add in the shallots and cook for 4-5 minutes until translucent.  Add in the garlic, thyme, bay leaves and mushrooms and continue to cook over medium-low heat.  Salt the ingredients at this point to help the moisture release.  As the mushrooms begin to cook, you’ll see that they release some moisture.  This is a good thing – continue to cook them until you can see that all of this moisture has cooked off – may take 10-15 minutes.  Make sure the heat is low enough so they don’t brown too much.

Once the moisture is gone – add in the stock, cream, lemon zest, black pepper and a little more salt.  Bring the liquid to a boil and reduce the heat to a simmer and let this cook for around 15-20 minutes.  Add in the rest of the lemon juice and stir to combine.  Taste the soup at this point and adjust the salt levels as needed for your tastes.  If the soup is too thin at this point, continue to cook – if it is too thick, add a little more stock.

If you desire a less chunky soup, you can run the soup through a blender at this point, but I would not recommend using a sieve to strain this soup.  If you are fine with the consistency, serve it as is!  Top with some croutons and chopped parsley – and if you really want to take it over the top, finish it with some truffle oil.

**No food processor method**: Cook the prepped mushrooms in the pan as you would with the chopped mushrooms, but you will need to cook them for a little longer to render out the moisture.  You will also want to use a blender to puree the soup after it is done cooking, then bring back to the heat and cook down or thin as necessary.

Serves 4-5

Autumn is here, and for me, that means time for soup.  I think soup gets a bad rap – people think about making the stuff and they immediately dismiss the idea as being too high maintenance, too much effort for a simple weeknight dinner.  I’m here to try to break that stereotype.  Soup is simple people!

This variation takes a few vegetables, some stock and some cheese and in about 20 minutes, you have a delicious and healthy dinner.  Pair it with a simple grilled provolone cheese on sourdough if you’re really hungry.  This soup serves as a great friend to a grilled cheese – much better than your monotonous canned tomato soups.

The idea of putting Ricotta cheese in the soup instead of milk or cream comes from the (huge) Silver Spoon Italian cookbook.  It worked really well, and I even added a touch of Feta too for an interesting diversity of flavors.  Next time you have a big pile of spinach in your fridge and don’t want to make another spinach salad, try this instead.  I loved the results:

Food:

• 1 big pile of Spinach – about 2 cups (see pic)
• 1 large or 2 smaller Yukon Gold (you can use Russets in a pinch) Potatoes – peeled and cubed
• 2 large Leeks – halved and chopped into half moons
• ~1 cup Ricotta Cheese (use part-skim if desired)
• 3-4 cups Chicken Stock (Use Vegetable if you want) – enough to cover the potatoes
• 1 Tsp freshly grated Lemon Zest
• Salt and Pepper to taste

Optionally:

• Add in some cubed Eggplant to the mixture
• Add in 2 Tbsp. Feta Cheese
• Add in 1 clove of Garlic to the cooking vegetables

Method:

Heat the stock over medium/high heat with a liberal amount of salt in a heavy bottomed pot like a dutch oven or cast iron skillet (taste the stock as to not over season).  Add in the potatoes, cover the pot and cook for 5 minutes.   Turn the heat down to low and add the leeks (and eggplant if using) and cook for another 5 minutes.  Add the spinach and black pepper, cover and cook over lowered heat for another 7-10 minutes, until all the vegetables are cooked through.

Transfer the mixture to a blender and blend until smooth.  Once blended well, transfer the mixture back to the pot.  Add in the Ricotta cheese, lemon zest and Feta (if using) and stir vigorously with a whisk or slotted spoon.  The Ricotta won’t totally adhere to the soup mixture, but it should lighten the soup up a bit.  Taste for seasoning, adjusting as necessary.

Serve the soup in bowls and enjoy!

Makes around 4 servings