Quick Ribollita, Every Day with Rachael Ray October 2011
Danielle's Pumpkin-Pie Parfaits, Food Network Magazine October 2010
After last week's constant meat feast, (with the six cuts of meat that we bought >_< ) we're lightening up a bit this week and doing more beans and vegetables.
Ribollita is a traditional Italian soup with cannellini beans and bread (other ingredients vary). It's tagged in the magazine as a "gut-busting soup" which G interpreted as "diet food" and I interpreted in the opposite way (the magazine means it in the "hearty" sense). In the end though, I don't think this was gut-busting in either sense of the word. It was basically just tons of vegetables and felt really healthy, and despite the bread, it wasn't overly filling either. Just satisfying. We didn't care for the texture of the bread (I guess it's like a lazy person's dumplings), so we won't do that part next time. Instead, I'd prefer to serve some cheese on toast with this.
I normally use "better than bouillon" any time I need broth (it's very good), but last week I both used up the last bit from the jar and stuffed the third chicken skeleton in the freezer. So, today I let that simmer with some random vegetables and herbs and used that for this soup. It was tasting really subtle until I added the salt, and then it magically turned into chicken broth.
This is a good recipe for eating lots of vegetables, something we don't do enough! If it weren't for making the broth (and thus running out of appropriate-sized pots, since the broth is basically the last thing to be added), this would have been very fast too, supposedly just 30 minutes.
In addition to the vegetables and legumes this week, we're also having a different drink/dessert each night. There were just several that looked good, so I figured why not try them all and see what's best. We kicked it off with this pumpkin mousse:
The funny thing is that in the picture next to this recipe, it shows the parfait being in a tall cup this size, so many of the reviewers complain that it's definitely not 6 servings. But oh my gawwwd is it impossible to eat more than a serving... we scaled the recipe down to make 4, and I think we just barely managed to eat 1/4th of it before being done in. It's just so sweet and rich (G says, "fit for kings"), with strong white chocolate overtones (this might be my fault-- I was using a solid piece of chocolate instead of chips, so I couldn't really measure). It has surprisingly little pumpkin in it. In rank order of ingredients, it goes 1. cream, 2. powdered sugar, 3. white chocolate and pumpkin (tie in the recipe, but like I said I think I accidentally put in more chocolate).
I don't really like this-- I don't care for white chocolate-- but G said it seemed like something that could be served at Craigie on Main (his favorite restaurant). They would've included the bourbon, though. If I recall correctly, the last time we went to Craigie they served us popcorn ice cream. So I don't think this is quite original enough for them. G countered that they even serve burgers at Craigie, so they're not restricted to fancy foods. But then he admitted that their burgers are injected with bone marrow. So, yeah-- I don't think they would serve this!
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