For my birthday my daughter bought me a couple of books to help me learn how to hopefully make my blog better. I have been writing about food for 8 years now and I haven’t changed much since I started. I don’t think I have a bad blog but there is always room for improvement and I would really like to spend more time on giving all of you that read this the best I can make it.

I spent way too much time on trying to figure out a logo for my food blog and still came up empty. I am not discouraged I just want something to catch my eye and I feel that when I see it I will know. At least that is what I hope. I toyed around changing the name; my daughter thought I could shorten it but I am pretty partial to Cooking at Clark Towers.

I wanted to share the above with you so if you see some changes you will know why.  Now for why I blog – the food. We have made a couple of things this week that I think you would like. At least my family did and that is my basic criteria to what I share here.

Rustic Ribollita Soup

dclarkabal

a hearty soup that also tastes great the next day or two

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Ingredients

  

• ¼ cup extra virgin olive oil
• 3 ribs celery thinly sliced
• 2 medium carrots thinly sliced into rounds
• 1 medium onion finely diced
• 1 clove garlic minced
• kosher salt
• 2 tablespoon tomato paste
• 1 28 ounce can whole peeled tomatoes preferably San Marzano
• 1 3 ounce chunk Parmigiano-Reggiano cheese and rind cut off rind and reserve
• ¼ teaspoon red pepper flakes
• ½ pound kale (about ½ a bunch) stemmed, leaves coarsely chopped
• ¾ pound swiss chard stemmed, leaves coarsely chopped (stem could be diced and added
• 2 15 ounce can white bean rinsed and drained
• 4 slices rustic bread toasted and diced we used homemade croutons for our soup

Instructions

 

• In a 6-8 quart Dutch oven - or something comparable; add 3 tablespoons of olive oil, add the celery, carrots, onion, garlic, swiss chard stems if using along with ¼ teaspoon salt. Cook stirring occasionally, until the vegetables begin to soften, about 5 minutes. Stir in the tomato paste, then add the canned tomatoes with their juices, the Parmesan rind, pepper flakes, and 5 cups of water. Bring to a gentle simmer, breaking up the tomatoes with a wooden spoon. Cook until the vegetables are very tender, 20-25 minutes.
• Add the kale and simmer until just tender, about 10 minutes. Add the chard and the beans. Continue cooking until the greens are tender another 8-10 minutes. Remove the Parmesan rind.
• Remove the soup from the heat, stir in the toasted bread piece, and let stand for 5 minutes. Add the remaining olive oil and stir well to break up the bread so that it blends into the soup a bit. Adjust the seasoning to taste. Serve hot, with shaved parmesan cheese and even some more pepper flakes if you want.
• Ribollita meaning - in Italian is means reboiled. The rustic soup could be eaten in stages, initally, without the bread added would be thick bean and vegetable soup. the next day you would add the bread to extend the soup. The third day. If there was any soup left, you would bake it till it was heated through and a crispy crust forms on top.

Adapted from Bringing it home – Gail Simmons