Ribollita

[Plumerias]

There is that saying, when in Rome............ Well, when in Tuscany and it's cool and there's a wonderful fresh market and an excellent bakery nearby............ Does anyone have a recipe for ribollita? I just have a basic kitchen, so making broth in advance (that's what I'm finding online so far, sigh) isn't an option. I'll have to use canned beans. The market has great herbs. HELP?! Grazie mille!

[AlwaysAgnes]

There is that saying, when in Rome............ Well, when in Tuscany and it's cool and there's a wonderful fresh market and an excellent bakery nearby............ Does anyone have a recipe for ribollita? I just have a basic kitchen, so making broth in advance (that's what I'm finding online so far, sigh) isn't an option. I'll have to use canned beans. The market has great herbs. HELP?! Grazie mille!

I've never made it, but I'm seeing different variations online. There are a few recipes that use canned beans. Some puree part of the beans. Lacinato kale and cabbage or other greens are typical. You can go light or heavy on the tomato. (Light on the tomato would probably be my preference.) This authentic recipe goes light on tomato and uses dry beans. http://www.cookwithgrazia.com/csa-box-c ... ic-recipe/

These recipes use canned beans. (If nothing else, you should be able to get inspiration from them.):
http://www.thekitchn.com/soup-recipe-it ... ita-131359
https://afoodcentriclife.com/ribollita- ... able-soup/
http://www.foodandwine.com/recipes/ribollita
http://www.amateurgourmet.com/2012/01/r ... -soup.html
https://www.loveandlemons.com/ribollita ... bean-soup/

I'd say just make a great peasant soup with lots of aromatics and then add some stale bread or eat it with toasted bread.

[Plumerias]

Thanks Agnes! Hmmmm, just why did I know it would be you who answered? (Actually, I figured on a three way tie between you, Minnie, and greentea.) Inspiration indeed. I think I like your last suggestion the best though! I did make a farro and borlotti bean soup yesterday with all sorts of fresh stuff from the market. It was so fun, especially after being in a country with groceries that were, let's be polite here, boring and uninspiring. We also have a toaster, so DH, with advice from the saleswoman, bought a bread specifically for bruschetta. Oh, gee, and then there are ingredients for panzanella too. Hmm, maybe I should start another thread and ask what kinds of toppings people use for that. If only olive oil wasn't a food group in Italy, sigh, then we could try more stuff in restaurants.

[AlwaysAgnes]

Thanks Agnes! Hmmmm, just why did I know it would be you who answered? (Actually, I figured on a three way tie between you, Minnie, and greentea.) Inspiration indeed. I think I like your last suggestion the best though! I did make a farro and borlotti bean soup yesterday with all sorts of fresh stuff from the market. It was so fun, especially after being in a country with groceries that were, let's be polite here, boring and uninspiring. We also have a toaster, so DH, with advice from the saleswoman, bought a bread specifically for bruschetta. Oh, gee, and then there are ingredients for panzanella too. Hmm, maybe I should start another thread and ask what kinds of toppings people use for that. If only olive oil wasn't a food group in Italy, sigh, then we could try more stuff in restaurants.

I've never made panzanella either, but Mary McDougall has a recipe. https://www.drmcdougall.com/misc/2015nl/jul/recipes.htm I would imagine that heirloom tomatoes are key in this. I love heirloom tomatoes. Tasty. They are $3/pound, though. I still buy them.

Can't really say that I do bruschetta either. Okay. That's it. I guess I'm not Italian. I still made pasta e fagioli the other day with cranberry beans. I love cranberry beans. (I ordered 4 bags of them from Bob's Red Mill because they're just too hard to find in stores around here.) http://www.bobsredmill.com/cranberry-beans.html These are also called October beans. They make great Southern-style "soup beans" which is basically a pot of beans with a thick creamy broth. Soup beans are a mainstay for many Southerners, I reckon.

Okay. Now, back to ribollita!

[Plumerias]

Thanks Agnes! Hmmmm, just why did I know it would be you who answered? (Actually, I figured on a three way tie between you, Minnie, and greentea.) Inspiration indeed. I think I like your last suggestion the best though! I did make a farro and borlotti bean soup yesterday with all sorts of fresh stuff from the market. It was so fun, especially after being in a country with groceries that were, let's be polite here, boring and uninspiring. We also have a toaster, so DH, with advice from the saleswoman, bought a bread specifically for bruschetta. Oh, gee, and then there are ingredients for panzanella too. Hmm, maybe I should start another thread and ask what kinds of toppings people use for that. If only olive oil wasn't a food group in Italy, sigh, then we could try more stuff in restaurants.

I've never made panzanella either, but Mary McDougall has a recipe. https://www.drmcdougall.com/misc/2015nl/jul/recipes.htm I would imagine that heirloom tomatoes are key in this. I love heirloom tomatoes. Tasty. They are $3/pound, though. I still buy them.

Can't really say that I do bruschetta either. Okay. That's it. I guess I'm not Italian. I still made pasta e fagioli the other day with cranberry beans. I love cranberry beans. (I ordered 4 bags of them from Bob's Red Mill because they're just too hard to find in stores around here.) http://www.bobsredmill.com/cranberry-beans.html These are also called October beans. They make great Southern-style "soup beans" which is basically a pot of beans with a thick creamy broth. Soup beans are a mainstay for many Southerners, I reckon.

Okay. Now, back to ribollita!

Yes, a good heirloom tomato is indeed the secret to good panzanella, for sure. But then, I think it's the secret to a good many celebrate the bounty of the season recipes. Sigh, I miss growing them. In Venice I found a vendor who was selling huge ones for 5 euros a kilo. This was one of those markets where you wait and the vendor chooses and bags for you, it was busy, and there was only one, so I waited hopefully. Well, the receipt said the thing weighed 1.044 kg, and it was just exactly right for the salad I made. It was the first decent tomato we'd had in ages.

On the cranberry (aka borlotti, aka romano) beans, when we're in Florida in the winter I can get them at Walmart! Yeah, can you believe that, Walmart. And they're not expensive or icky at all. So, for what that's worth........ Oh, and come to think of it, maybe Target as well.

An Italian grandma must have lived in this rental, the kitchen has some of the most interesting, and very nice, cookware. There's also a cookbook, Il Cucchiaio Verde, La bibbia della cucina vegetariana on the shelf. It has some recipes that Google translate and I are going to have to work on, including ribollita and panzanella, and several potentially interesting soups. What a great way to learn some Italian words!

[AlwaysAgnes]

Yes, a good heirloom tomato is indeed the secret to good panzanella, for sure. But then, I think it's the secret to a good many celebrate the bounty of the season recipes. Sigh, I miss growing them. In Venice I found a vendor who was selling huge ones for 5 euros a kilo. This was one of those markets where you wait and the vendor chooses and bags for you, it was busy, and there was only one, so I waited hopefully. Well, the receipt said the thing weighed 1.044 kg, and it was just exactly right for the salad I made. It was the first decent tomato we'd had in ages.

On the cranberry (aka borlotti, aka romano) beans, when we're in Florida in the winter I can get them at Walmart! Yeah, can you believe that, Walmart. And they're not expensive or icky at all. So, for what that's worth........ Oh, and come to think of it, maybe Target as well.

An Italian grandma must have lived in this rental, the kitchen has some of the most interesting, and very nice, cookware. There's also a cookbook, Il Cucchiaio Verde, La bibbia della cucina vegetariana on the shelf. It has some recipes that Google translate and I are going to have to work on, including ribollita and panzanella, and several potentially interesting soups. What a great way to learn some Italian words!

When I was growing up, my grandfather was the "vegetable man." He had a huge garden and sold his vegetables around town. I remember baskets and baskets and baskets full of tomatoes and cucumbers and zucchini and green beans and berries and melons and bushels of sweet corn covering tables set up down in his basement. He'd load the produce up in the back of his station wagon and take it around town or to the farmer's market whenever they had it. My grandparents' house always smelled like tomatoes and cantaloupe. They had very green thumbs. I'm lucky if I have a green hangnail, but I am taking a little stab at back yard gardening here in the desert. I have a keyhole garden and 4x8 raised beds and two big blue plastic storage tubs. Tomato plants didn't do worth a crap this season, but I had some volunteer tomatoes grow in my compost pile last fall/winter that were very tasty. They were campari and cherry tomatoes, I believe. The prettiest thing in my garden right now are the sweet potato vines growing in the blue plastic tubs. I don't know if there are sweet potatoes forming down in that dirt, but we'll see. We'll see....

That cookbook has some good reviews at Amazon. I don't know what the commenters say, but there weren't any low 1 or 2 star reviews.

[greentea]

I would have answered but I've never made Ribollita. How was it? It sounds delicious!
Totally off topic, but have you tried those fabulous giant caper berries they have in Italy?

[Plumerias]

I would have answered but I've never made Ribollita. How was it? It sounds delicious!
Totally off topic, but have you tried those fabulous giant caper berries they have in Italy?

Well, I never got the recipe translated, as the instructions were quite long and we were busy being tourists. Plus, it's apparently a make it today to eat tomorrow dish, requiring more refrigerator space than is available. However, DH found that we can get the book at home, he's put it on our Amazon list for when we return. So, ha, ha, maybe that's just Merry Christmas to me, eh?!

No on the caper berries.

But............ yesterday we went to the morning market at Campo de' Fiori for groceries. A number of the vendors sell already chopped up mixes for several dishes. I got a big bag of the one labeled minestrone. It had all sorts of good stuff in it, including some shelled fresh beans. All I needed to do, after understanding how long those pretty beans would take, was add some herbs, not difficult as I bought several, a can of tomatoes, some water, and later some pasta. And pasta is just so much fun here, all sorts of interesting options we've never seen. With 90% of the work done for me, that was hard to pass up! It was quite tasty and we plan to do it again. Rental kitchens are often sadly lacking (you know me well enough to translate that ), and this one is certainly no exception, so I appreciated the ease of making such a healthy dish.

[greentea]

The selection of pasta was impressive! All those colours and shapes available made it impossible to choose.
I was pretty blown away by the selection of lentils and beans too. There were many varieties I had never seen before.

[Plumerias]

The selection of pasta was impressive! All those colours and shapes available made it impossible to choose.
I was pretty blown away by the selection of lentils and beans too. There were many varieties I had never seen before.

Oh, the grocery store in the Venetian neighborhood had the most fun pasta aisle, I was like a little kid. But the kitchen sucked, so we limited our cooking there to things like salads with killer tomatoes, peaches, cucumber, balsamic vinegar, basil and the last of yesterday's bread. Sigh. Now, the Rialto Market in Venice, that place had amazing pastas and packaged risotto mixes.

[Faith in DC]

Oh you all are making me jealous.

Anyway looking at the recipes that Agnes posted, that looks like a interesting soup. I have never heard of it. Did you try it?