Recipe #50: Tuscan soup with turkey meatballs for a winter storm
Wow—today is not only the 50th rubbishy post, but also the Winter Solstice, and where I live, the first winter storm (a nor’ easter, no less!) of the year! Let’s get cosy and make a warm pot of Tuscan soup!
Ingredients:
What you may not notice in the photo above is that the fresh kale was harvested from my backyard garden just hours before the storm started.
Imagine—a December harvest of kale! And half price ground turkey! I feel hashtag blessed.
Directions:
Start by mixing ingredients for the turkey meatballs: ground turkey, a generous handful or two of quick cook rolled oats, 1-2 tablespoons-ish each of garlic powder, onion powder, dried thyme, dried basil, not pictured but assumed S&P, and a really good amount of finely grated Parmesan cheese. Mix it all up with your hands and add more oats if necessary to get a good texture, i.e., one in which to form meatballs:
Here’s the texture you want, with the late addition of S&P:
Heat some glugs of olive oil in a large soup pot over medium high heat:
Add your formed meatballs, which I form and put directly into the pot as I go, and I’m aiming for large marble sized balls, but I don’t get too precious about the sizes:
Brown those balls, stirring frequently to prevent sticking or burning, but don’t overdo it or they may fall apart. Like life, it’s a balance:
Don’t leave your browning balls unattended, and lower the heat if necessary, and give them a gentle stir every so often, while you dice your veggies: a peeled potato, a peeled large carrot, celery, and an onion. Then finely chop, pardon my language, a shit ton of garlic:
Once the balls are nicely browned all over, more or less, the proper thing to do would be to gently remove them from the pot and reserve aside while adding more oil to the pot and sautéing the vegetables until translucent. The rubbishy method is much simpler. We just throw the chopped veggies and shit ton of garlic in with the balls and jueje everything around in there for a few minutes or so, as you silently wish you weren’t so lazy and had removed the meatballs first:
It’s fine.
When your intuition says it’s time to move on, add enough water to cover everything in the pot, a bay leaf or two, and a generous scoop of Better Than Bouillon:
Add some dried thyme and basil to complement the meatball seasoning:
And chunks of Parmesan cheese, or the rinds if you’ve got ‘em:
It will look like this:
Bring it to a boil:
Then lower the heat to simmer for at least 30 minutes up to an hour.
After a nice long simmer, add the drained canned white kidney (or cannellini) beans:
And chopped fresh kale:
Stir it all up and simmer for another thirty minutes or so:
Lookin’ good! Smellin’ great!
Serve in faux Tuscan style shallow soup bowls with shaved Parmesan on top and some good crusty bread and beverage of your choice. And hunker down for the storm!
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