Acquacotta... much more than just "cooked water"

Acquacotta in Italian means, literally, cooked water, but as you can tell by the picture, there's much more to this Tuscan soup than just cooked water. There's a poached egg, there's a rich mushroom and tomato broth and, underneath it all there's a thick slice of bread sprinkled with Pecorino cheese. It's a very comforting dish, easy to make and, above all, it's very cheap. Mushrooms are plentiful in this season, but I had so many bags of dried porcini (don't ask, I'm not sure why) in the pantry I used those, and it turned out great.

ACQUACOTTA

Serves 4

2 large onions, minced

4 garlic cloves, minced

Extra virgin olive oil

2 pounds mushrooms, sliced

5 tomatoes, cubed

5 cups tasty stock

Grated Romano cheese

4 eggs

4 large slices country bread

Salt and pepper

Dried marjoram

Heat a bit of EVOO in a large dutch oven, add onions and sautee on medium heat for a ten minutes, stirring so it doesn't burn. Add garlic and mushrooms, sautee for three minutes. Add tomatoes, season with salt, pepper and marjoram and cook for about ten minutes. Add broth, cover and cook for 15 minutes.

In the mean time, toast bread and place each slice on the bottom of a large bowl. Sprinkle with cheese. Pour very hot soup in each bowl. Crack an egg in each one. The broth will cook the egg. Sprinkle with cheese and serve.

Light and cool cream of tomato soup

A summer recipe. As if we needed them around here. Seriously, folks, it's raining and storming and haling pretty much every other day, if not every day. Whenever the weather is nice I practically run to the Lido (pool and lake access here in town) to catch some rays and read in the sun. Otherwise I'm home, doing laundry and the likes.

Maybe I shouldn't be complaining too much. The end of June and beginning of July have been really nice. I just don't get why we have had so much rain in the last ten days. I kid you not, yesterday the weather was so gloomy we went up to Lanzo d'Intelvi, right after the Swiss Italian border and we ate homemade tagliatelle with deer ragout. I mean, that's something you do in October, for crying out loud. Right now we should be frolicking in the water, drinking margaritas and eating fresh produce, right?

So whenever there's a gorgeous day out I do my best to cook up some summer fare because I know, I just know it, that come September I'll start moping around blaming myself for not having taken advantage of the bounty of summer produce enough. Last week I made this cold tomato soup, a recipe I've found in an Italian cooking magazine, Cucina Moderna. It turned out great. Next time I'll make more so I can have some leftovers to enjoy once the weather turns horrible again...

LIGHT AND COOL CREAM OF TOMATO SOUP

Serves 4

2 pounds of ripe tomatoes
2 onions
1 tablespoon paprika
2 cups vegetable broth
1/2 pound yogurt
1 teaspoon sugar
Fresh thyme
Olive oil
Salt

Wash tomatoes, cut in half. Chop onions, place them in a Dutch oven with tomatoes, a tablespoon of olive oil, salt to taste, sugar and paprika. Cover and cook for 20 minutes on medium heat.

Add broth, stir and cover for 10 more minutes. Process with an immersion blender until smooth. Let it cool. Add yogurt, stir well and regulate salt.

Sprinkle with fresh thyme and serve.

Barley and bean soup

So I guess that winter is almost over. Or at least it is over here in Southern Switzerland. I was so looking forward to be spending a "real" winter —with snow, fireplaces and the likes— that the longer and colder part of it flew by without me even noticing. Back in October, I can admit this now, I was a little concerned with the approaching season. After ten years in Florida I wasn't 100% convinced I could make it through without missing a beat, the way I used to go through it when I was a kid or a teenager. Well, I guess I was underestimating myself. November, December and January went by a flash and just like that the snow, the Northern winds and the fog quickly became a thing of the past. It is now almost March —can you believe that?— and, regardless of what old, pessimistic village drones say, the worst is over. Every day the sun shines and high temps are in the low 60s. Excuse me if I'm optimistic and I call it early spring... but it just feels that way.

So with that in mind, I've decided to get wintery food out of my system by cooking a few more wintery dishes before the new month starts. Because March, my friends, means spring and spring means asparagus and broccoli and baby spinach and all that good, green, fresh stuff. So while the temperatures still dip into the 30s at night I've made a big, steaming batch of one of my favorite soups: barley and cannellini beans. It's hearty, but it's not 100% wintery if you ask me. Why? Because it's damn good even cold, that's why.

BARLEY AND BEAN SOUP

Adapted from Cooking Light

• 1  cup  dried cannellini beans
• 1  tablespoon  olive oil
• 2  cups  finely chopped red onion
• 1/4  cup  finely chopped fresh flat-leaf parsley
• 1/2  cup  finely chopped celery
• 1/2  cup  finely chopped carrot
• 1/2  cup  chopped fresh basil
• 9  cups  water
• 2  cups  organic vegetable broth (such as Swanson Certified Organic)
• 2  bay leaves
• 1/3  cup  uncooked pearl barley
• 1/2  teaspoon  salt
• 1/2  teaspoon  freshly ground black pepper
• 1/2  teaspoon  hot sauce
• 2  tablespoons  grated fresh Parmesan cheese

Sort and wash beans; place in a large saucepan. Cover with water to 2 inches above beans; bring to a boil. Cook 2 minutes; remove from heat. Cover and let stand 1 hour. Drain beans. Wipe pan dry with a paper towel.

Heat oil in pan over medium-high heat. Add onion, parsley, celery, carrot, and basil; cook 3 minutes, stirring frequently. Add beans, 9 cups water, vegetable broth, and bay leaves; bring to a boil. Reduce heat, and simmer 1 hour and 15 minutes or until beans are tender. Discard bay leaves.

Place 3/4 cup beans and 3/4 cup cooking liquid in a blender; process until smooth. Return pureed bean mixture to pan. Stir in barley, salt, pepper, and hot sauce; bring to a boil. Reduce heat, and simmer 30 minutes or until barley is done. Ladle soup into individual bowls; sprinkle with cheese.

Not your usual, canned chicken noodle soup

I was going to call this post "Not your mother's chicken noodle soup", but then I figured that most of you probably have mothers that make theirs from scratch, so I had to abandon the idea. Because this is what this post is about: about being sick and longing for good, comforting soup. And it's also about being too sick to go to Amsterdam with your best friend and realizing how much it sucks to be sick and be by your self. If I had a tag called "pity party" I would definitely file this recipe under it, but I like to think that this is the first and last time I'll need it so, I guess I'll classify it under soup and low fat and call it a day. 


Last Monday when I came home from Stockholm, as I was driving home from the airport, I started feeling a little weird, as in not hungry at all although it was 10 p.m. and I hadn't had anything since lunch. I thought it just had to be the tiredness from all that walking in the cold wind, so when I went home I went straight to bed thinking that would make me feel better. Wrong. It wasn't that I was tired. It wasn't the walking or the wind or all those other things. It was a stomach flu that kept me up most of the night. Last time I had one of those I was traveling through California with my parents and I was 11, so I had no recollection of what kind of medicine and remedies one has to use in these cases. After going through the medicine cabinet, though, I realized that even if I had known everything in that stupid drawer had expired around 1999. My mother calls it "being a healthy family". I called it something else at 5 a.m. while sweating cold sweat and feeling too nauseous to stand, but I won't repeat it here because there might be kids reading this. So Tuesday I still felt under the weather. No more nausea, but my stomach still felt weird. And the weirdest thing of all was that I still wasn't hungry. At all. I sipped on herbal tea and nibble on saltines. I spent the whole day on the couch desperately trying to make myself feel better. The next day at 7 a.m. I had to be on a plane to Amsterdam with Francesca, dammit. So I went to bed at 8 p.m., confident that when the alarm would go off at 5 a.m. on Wednesday I would wake up feeling like my normal self again.


It didn't happen. 


What did happen, instead, is that Francesca called me at 5 a.m. to tell me that she was also feeling lousy, describing me the same symptoms I had had Monday night. We knew right away our trip to Amsterdam was not going to happen. I mean, what's the point in going to visit a new, wonderful city when all you want to do is curl up in a ball and die? We decided to stay home and spent the next three days talking to each other over Skype, both laying on the couch too weak to even sit up. We were miserable. So miserable that we were dreaming about having someone show up at our doorstep with some kind of comfort soup. On the third day I was so desperate I was dreaming of Campbell's chicken noodle soup. Which is when I realized that I actually had all the ingredients —except for the celery— to make chicken noodle soup. I saw the light at the end of the tunnel. I dragged myself to the kitchen, drank some herbal tea with lots of sugar in it for energy, and put together the soup. Now I don't know id it was the flu that had simply ran its course or it was my soup, but the next day I woke up feeling great. And as for Amsterdam, I swear I'm going to go in the spring.


CHICKEN NOODLE SOUP
Adapted from Cooking Light

• 48 oz. chicken broth
  1  tablespoon  olive oil
  1/2  cup  chopped onion
  1/2  cup  green peas
  1/2  teaspoon  salt
  1/2  teaspoon  freshly ground black pepper
  1  medium carrot, chopped
  6  ounces  fusilli pasta
  2 1/2  cups  shredded skinless, boneless rotisserie chicken breast (I didn’t have any, so I cooked and shredded my own chicken)
  2  tablespoons  chopped fresh flat-leaf parsley
  
  
  Warm up broth in a large sauce pan.
  While broth heats, heat a skillet over medium-high heat. Add oil to pan; swirl to coat. Add onion, green peas, salt, pepper, and carrot; sauté 3 minutes or until almost tender, stirring frequently. Add to hot broth and stir in pasta; bring to a boil. Cook 7 minutes or until pasta is almost al dente. Stir in chicken; cook 1 minute or until thoroughly heated. Stir in parsley

Roasted chestnut soup

• Happy December everyone! Can you believe that November has already come and gone? Seriously, if I think of Halloween it seems just a few days ago and now here I am, sitting in the kitchen with the snow coming down and the first window of my Advent calendar already open. Soon I'll start baking all kinds of Christmas cookies and I guess I should be posting all kinds of Christmas related recipes, but first I wanted to share one that I had made for Thanksgiving dinner —only I ended up forgetting about it so I didn't serve it to my guests. I'm a notoriously chaotic person, you see, and I tend to be easily distracted so no one was too surprised when, once dessert was served and already eaten, I realized the soup was sitting in its pot on the stove, simmering on low. 
  Since it was too late to serve it to my guests I ended up eating the leftovers for days —good thing the soup was delicious, comforting and thick as a winter soup should be.
  
  
  ROASTED CHESTNUT SOUP
  Adapted from Cooking Light
  3  cups  whole roasted and peeled chestnuts
  2  cups  chopped yellow onion
  3/4  cup  thinly sliced carrot
  1  tablespoon  olive oil
  6  cups  beef broth
  Salt and pepper
  1/3  cup  heavy whipping cream
  1 1/2  teaspoons  chopped fresh thyme leaves
  
  
  Combine onion, carrot, and oil on pan; toss to coat vegetables. Bake at 400° for 1 hour or until tender, stirring occasionally. Add to chestnuts; stir in broth. Pour half of broth mixture into a blender; blend until smooth. Pour pureed mixture into a Dutch oven. Repeat procedure with remaining broth mixture. Stir in 1/2 teaspoon salt and pepper. Place pan over medium-high heat; bring to a simmer. Reduce heat, and simmer 20 minutes. 
  
  
  Place cream in a medium bowl; beat with a mixer at high speed until soft peaks form. Add remaining 1/8 teaspoon salt; beat at high speed until stiff peaks form (do not overbeat). Ladle about 3/4 cup soup into each of 10 bowls; top each serving with about 1 tablespoon cream. Sprinkle with thyme. Serve immediately.

Cream of mushrooms

Since summer it's practically here, I decided it would be a good time to use up everything that is in the fridge and pantry that is kinda wintery, so that I can make room for fresh and delightful summer ingredients and food. See, the thing is refrigerators, pantries and kitchens in general are much smaller in Europe, unless you live in a humongous mansion. Which, in case you are wondering, is not the case. For the time being I'm staying in a wonderfully cozy and cute attic that oozes charm —but has a tiny kitchen and virtually no room for food storage. Hence the idea of using up ingredients that don't scream "summer" to me because the weather has been gorgeous lately and the warmer and sunnier it gets, the least I want to eat heavier, richer winter foods.

Which brings me to today's recipe: cream of mushrooms. Mushrooms make me think of rainy fall evenings, walks in the woods, a nice pot of risotto on the stove. I love them, but they are —at least to me— the anti-summer food, which is why I decided I had to finish off the bag of dried porcini I had leftover from the winter. And since these days I'm mostly cooking just for myself I decided that making risotto would be kind of ridiculous, which is why I made soup instead. Although you can't really tell by the picture, it turned out to be delicious. So delicious, in fact, that I didn't even tried to take better pictures, I just sat down and ate it all.

CREAM OF MUSHROOMS

Serves 4 

3 cups sliced fresh mushrooms

1 cup broth

1/3 cup chopped onion

1 teaspoon dried thyme

2 tablespoons butter

2 tablespoons all-purpose flour

Salt

Ground black pepper

2/3 cup half-and-half or milk

2 teaspoons sherry

  

In a large saucepan, cook mushrooms in the broth with onion and thyme until tender, about 10 to 15 minutes. 

Using an immersion blender, puree the mixture, leaving some chunks of vegetable in it. Set aside. 

In the saucepan, melt the butter, whisk in the flour until smooth. Add the salt, pepper, half and half and vegetable puree. Stirring constantly, bring soup to a boil and cook until thickened. Adjust seasonings to taste, and add sherry.

Shrimp and sausage gumbo

I've never been to New Orleans. I was supposed to go in September, but then we decided to put off the trip a couple of months. I was supposed to go in December, but I went and broke my kneecap, which kinda put a dent in our travel plans. And now that I've lost my job, it looks like the only traveling I'll be doing any time soon will be the big moving to Europe thing. For the time being, the closest that I'll get to the Big Easy is eating gumbo, which I make with a recipe that isn't traditional at all.

So even when it comes to cooking I'm not getting any closer to New Orleans. I guess it just wasn't meant to be.

Said recipe comes from a Weight Watchers cookbook, of all places, but let me tell you: don't let this tidbit of information scare you away. It's a solid, good recipe and to be honest it doesn't feel or taste like a low calorie, low fat recipe at all. The broth is rich and aromatic, the vegetables add substance and, most of all, I doubled the amount of sausage the recipe called for, so there. No wonder it didn't taste low fat...

SHRIMP AND SAUSAGE GUMBO

Adapted from the Weight Watchers Complete Cookbook

2 tablespoons olive oil
1 orange bell pepper, chopped
1 celery stalk, chopped
1 large shallot, chopped
1 garlic clove, minced
1 14-ounce can crushed tomatoes
2 cups chicken broth
1 cup sliced okra
1 teaspoon thyme
1 bay leaf
Cayenne pepper, to taste
1/2 cup long-grain rice
1 pound shrimp, peeled and deveined
2 hot Italian sausage links

In a large Dutch oven, heat up the oil, add the sausage and stir to crumble. Cook for a couple of minutes. Add bell pepper, celery, garlic and shallot and cook for about 5 minutes, until tender. Stir in the tomatoes, broth, okra, thyme, bay leaf and cayenne pepper and bring to a boil. Reduce heat, cover, and simmer for 15 minutes.

Stir in the rice, cover and simmer for another 15 minutes. Add shrimp and cook for another 5 minutes or until done. Remove bay leaf.

"Cream" of cauliflower with turmeric

After failing miserably at eating healthy both during January and February, I'm currently trying to make March my best month yet. We'll see how long that lasts. I figured I have about 4 to 6 weeks before taking off to Italy and I'd like to be as healthy and productive as possible between now and then. Of course it's a little tricky, being productive before moving, I mean. Moving is stressful and when you are moving across an ocean the stress tends to peak to new heights, so the logic response to that —for me— would be to sit around, drink wine and eat cheese. But, alas, I can't. For a number of reasons. The first one might sound shallow and vain. I really don't want to move to Italy with an ass the size of Brazil and my clothes not fitting me anymore. The second reason, I admit, I care less about. I have been told that I have to pack and organize before I leave —something that I could do while drinking wine and eating cheese, but requires me to get up from the couch.

Mind you, I'll still drink wine. Because let's be honest: I don't think I can stay sane, pack and organize without a little help. But the food, I've decided, has to be healthy. And good for me. Hence this "cream" of cauliflower, that contains no cream at all. I invented it after having a long conversation about anti-cancer foods with my mom, who's reading a very interesting book on how to prevent it by eating the right things. Cauliflower, turmeric and black pepper are all ranking high in preventing cancer and I have to say, after taking a first spoonful of my new creation I was incredibly pleased with the result. It's great for you and it tastes amazing. What else could one want?

CREAM OF CAULIFLOWER WITH TURMERIC

2 pounds cauliflower florets
2 cups vegetable broth
Salt and pepper, to taste
2 tablespoons turmeric
1 1/2 cups plain natural yogurt

Place broth and cauliflower in a large pot and bring broth to a boil. Season with salt and pepper and sprinkle with turmeric. Reduce heat, cover and simmer for about 15 minutes, until florets are tender.
Puree with an immersion belnder. Stir in yogurt, adjust seasoning and enjoy hot or cold.

Pork, lentil and cabbage soup

 

That's right! More soup! I know January is supposed to be soup month, but the weather continues to be crummy and soup is usually an easy and cheap dish to put together, so you will probably see more soup recipes coming. As The Kitchen Witch wisely suggested, I should concentrate on recipes that are on the cheaper side now that I'm unemployed. It helps a bunch that I have all the time in the world to scout the local farmer's markets for inexpensive fruit and veggies, plus I will also have the chance to go to Costco and buy me some of that delicious pork tenderloin at $2.99 a pound. I mean, that's wicked cheap. If I buy it at the grocery store I have to dish out something close to $7/lbs. so, well, you do the math. 

Another thing that I have time to do now is clean and organize the house, and I cannot tell you how much it needs it. I started yesterday by attacking my closet —which was much worse than any closet I've ever seen. I kid you not, it was so bad that I didn't dare taking a "before" picture". I'll just take the "after" once I'm done with it and then I'll cart 10+ bags of clothes to Plato's Closet to see if they want to buy any of my crap. After I'm done with that there's the rest of the house to take care of, a thought that makes my knees feel weak, but at the same time makes me feel strangely comforted in a "at least I'm not gonna sit around and be depressed about it" kind of way.

And of course there will be some crazy cooking and baking —once we get the new dishwasher installed, that is. Because yes, on the same day I got canned, my dishwasher broke. As in forever. Cannot be repaired. But as soon as the new one comes in I'll have all day to cook and photograph all kinds of recipes so, if you have suggestions, please tell me. What should I attempt to cook now that I have all the time in the world?

PORK, LENTIL AND CABBAGE SOUP

Serves 6-8

Olive oil

One pork chop, deboned and cubed

Pork chop bone

2 onions, chopped

2 carrots, chopped

2 celery ribs, sliced

1 cup lentils

1 can chopped tomatoes

2 garlic cloves, minced

7 cups chicken stock

1 teaspoon dried thyme

3 cups finely sliced green cabbage

Salt and pepper

Minced parsely to garnish

Heat oil in a large dutch oven. Toss in the pork bone. Season cubed pork with salt and pepper and cook in heated pot until lightly browned. Add onions, carrots, celery and cook, constantly stirring, until vegetables are starting to brown.

Stir in lentils, tomatoes and garlic. Season with salt and pepper to taste. Mix well and add the stock and the thyme. Bring to the boil, lower the heat, cover and simmer for about a half hour. When lentils are tender add cabbage and cook for five minutes. Discard pork bone. Garnish with parsley just before serving.

Eggdrop soup

 

Day 2 of unemployment. If you didn't know I am freshly out of a job you can read my previous post here. Anyway, someone today told me that I should write a blog about being unemployed, which kinda sounds like a neat idea, except that it would be the most boring read ever —I woke up. Made coffee. Looked for a journalism job in a town where there's only a newspaper (which just laid me off). Didn't find one. Made lunch. Had drinks. Painted my toenails. Watched paint dry which, incidentally, is more fun than reading this blog about being unemployed.  No, I definitely don't need to start a new blog about being jobless. I'll just bitch and moan about it on this blog, which is what I do most of the times anyways, so, there.

Yesterday I received a ton of sympathy messages from both ex-coworkers, friends and complete strangers (yes, I'm talking about you, Pat Butcher!) which made my day. And made me get all teary and sentimental, something that happens on average once a decade. It was kind of weird, getting chocked up because of e-mails and Facebook messages and blog comments. When Tommy saw me in such a state he asked me a question that, I guess, makes sense if you are not dating a psychopath: "Did you cry when they fired you?" I looked at him as if he had lost his mind —not because I was trying to be a snot, but because I was sincererly bewildered by the question. So I anwered with another question: "No. Why? Do people normally cry when they get canned?" To his credit, I have to say that he shrugged and said something along the lines of "not neccesserly", so that I wouldn't feel too crazy or abnormal. 

The truth is, crying didn't cross my mind at all. Yes, I was losing my job. Yes, I was losing my journalism job that I worked pretty hard to get in the first place. Yes, it was stupid and unfair on twelve different levels. But I just sat there, feeling detached from the whole situation —kinda like when you dream  and you can see yourself doing stuff in the dream and you would like to intervene but you really can't. Or you don't want to. And, really, I didn't get teary until yesterday when I received all those support messages. But I guess that's what you get from a person who, as a little girl, locked herself in the bathroom when she got yelled at so that her parents wouldn't see her crying. 

The teariness didn't last long, though. As I always do when I feel a little down, I made soup. Egg drop soup, to be precise, although is definitely a different version from what you get at a Chinese restaurant.

I felt better immediatly. 

EGG DROP SOUP

Serves one jobless, hungry person

3 cups hot broth (I used chicken but you can use vegetable to make it vegetarian)

1/2 teaspoon five spice

1 Asian thin egg noodle nest

A handful frozen green peas

1 egg

Salt and pepper

4 scallions, thinly sliced

This is really easy. Warm up the broth and stir in the five spice to give it a little Asian kick. When the broth is boiling add the noodles and the frozen peas. Cook for 4 or 5 minutes, until noodles are done.

In the mean time, beat the egg and season it with salt and pepper. 

After the 5 minutes have elapsed remove pot from heat, stir in egg, sprinkle with scallions and enjoy!

Knodel with broth

There are places in our lives that are so magical, so great, they become part of us to the point where, even if we don't visit them for years, they are still there, in our hearts. Val Gardena, a valley north of the city of Bolzano in Northern Italy, is one of those places for me. We used to own a vacation home there and, come hell or high water, we'd spend winter weekends and holidays skiing the magnificent Dolomites around there, and summer vacations hiking and bicycling them. That's where, at the tender age of three, I learned how to ski. That's also where I met one of my best friends in the whole world. In the summer we ran around barefoot and climbed trees. In the winter we skied and beat boys to the bottom of the slope.

The beauty of the valley is staggering, both in the winter and in the summer. The mountains there are a peculiar shade of pink and, at sunset, they almost sparkle. All the houses are painted and perffectly kept, a remiander that the folk there might have an Italian passport, but they are Austrians at heart. The food too is simply amazing there. A blend of Italian and Austrian, the cuisine has evolved and grown and has become much more than just the sum of its parts. One of the dishes I loved the most is knodel with broth, a pretty basic dish of bread dumplings cooked and served in a rich, beefy stock. It's a peasant recipe that uses up stale bread and it's also very easy to make -perfect for when you, or someone in your family, feels a little under the weather.

 

KNODEL WITH BROTH

Serves 4

7 oz. old white bread, such as ciabatta

1 cup milk

2 eggs, beaten and seasoned with salt and pepper

1 onion, chopped

4 oz. speck or smoked prosciutto, minced

2 tablespoons of parsley, chopped

A pinch of nutmeg

Abundant beef broth

 

Cut the bread into cubes, place in a bowl and pour the milk and egg mixture over top. Mix well and let rest, covered with a napkin, for about an hour. Don't forget every once in a while to stir the bread so that it absorbs the liquid evenly. 

 

In the mean time prepare the broth and keep warm. 

 

In a small saucepan cook the onion gently with the speck until it is translucent, remove from the heat, let cool and  add the parsley.

 

Mix the onion mixture with the bread mixture. Sprinkle with flour if the mixture is too wet. Shape into balls, roll them in flour and gently lower all of them in the boiling broth. Cook for about 15 minutes, or until the dumplings float to the surface. Serve with broth, sprinkle with cheese if desired.

Spicy pork chili

So here's the thing: I couldn't care less about football or Superbowl. I'll be brutally honest with you: I find the game too long and not packed enough with action to hold my interest and, until yesterday, I was convinced -hopeful, really- that Superbowl Sunday was today. I say hopeful because after Superbowl is over there is a few months  of peace and quiet when I don't have to listen to football talk. Not that anyone would directly talk to me about football, but you know, they talk loud enough for me to hear. And if they are not talking they are updating their Facebook status with all-caps nonsense about the Colts or whoever else could make it to Superbowl.

One thing I like about Superbowl is the chili-eating aspect of it because chili happens to be one of my favorite dishes. Besides the fact that I love soupy meals, I like the fact that everyone makes chili in a different way and, at least when it comes to food, I will never get bored at a Superbowl party. I have three or four favorite chili recipes so far -this particular one is the latest addition. It's from -yet again- the Jan./Feb. issue of Cooking Light and it's made with pork instead of beef. I had to change the recipe a little bit, mostly because I forgot to buy some of the ingredients, but it turned out amazing: the ham hock gives it a wonderfully smoky flavor and the Mexican hot sauce delivers a nice kick.

SPICY PORK CHILI

Cooking spray

2  pounds  ground pork

3  cups  chopped onion

1  chopped green bell pepper

3  garlic cloves, minced

3  tablespoons  tomato paste

1  cup beer

Salt

3  tablespoons  chili powder

1  tablespoon  ground cumin

2  teaspoons  dried oregano

3/4  teaspoon  freshly ground black pepper

6  tomatillos, quartered

2  bay leaves

2  (14 1/2-ounce) cans plum tomatoes, undrained and chopped

1  (15-ounce) can red kidney beans, drained

1  (7 3/4-ounce) can Mexican hot-style tomato sauce

1  smoked ham hock (about 8 ounces)

Heat a large nonstick skillet over medium-high heat. Coat pan with cooking spray. Add ground pork to pan, season with salt and pepper to taste; cook 5 minutes or until browned, stirring to slightly crumble. Drain well. Transfer pork to an electric slow cooker.

Recoat pan with cooking spray. Add onion and bell pepper; sauté 8 minutes, stirring frequently. Add garlic; sauté 1 minute. Add tomato paste; cook 1 minute, stirring constantly. Stir in beer; cook 1 minute. Transfer onion mixture to slow cooker. Add salt, chili powder, and next 9 ingredients (through ham hock) to slow cooker. Cover and cook on HIGH 5 hours. Remove bay leaves and ham hock; discard.

Serve with fresh cilantro, chopped green onions, or sour cream if desired.

Black bean soup

As the cold temperatures continue, I hurry up and make all those recipes that I don't get to make often because of the stupid Florida heat. Along them, there is one that technically is sort of a local specialty, but I still can't bring myself to make if the temperature is over 70. I'm talking about Cuban-style black bean soup. If you are ever in the Naples/Fort Myers area, drop everything you are doing and run to a little place of Bonita Beach Road called Taco Mix. You can read the review I've written about Taco Mix on the Naples Daily News here, and learn how wonderful and appetizing everything they make is. Or you can just go ahead and make the soup, which alongside the sandwich Cubano and Daniel's amazing burritos is one of my favorite things to order there.

BLACK BEAN SOUP
(serves 4-6)

1 pound dried black beans
5 cups chicken broth
2 cups chopped onion
2 tablespoons ground cumin
3 bay leaves
2 chipotle chiles in adobo sauce, finely chopped
Fresh lime juice
1 teaspoon kosher salt
1/4 cup chopped fresh cilantro
Sour cream

Soak beans overnight or quick-soak them according to package directions.

Combine beans, broth, onion, cumin, bay leaves and chiles with their sauce in an electric slow cooker. Season with salt to taste. Cover and cook on Low for 10 hours. Stir in juice.

Serve soup sprinkled with 2 teaspoons chopped cilantro and a dollop of sour cream.

Comfort me with ham soup

Yesterday I finally went to the doctor to have my knee checked and was mildly surprised when he told me that I have a fractured knee cap. The good news, he said, is that it doesn't need surgery and doesn't need a cast. Only six weeks of crutches and a removable knee brace. At first I was giddy with excitement -who wouldn't be after finding out she doesn't need surgery? But then reality sunk in. The truth is, I wasn't expecting a broken bone for the simple reason that I had never broken a bone before. I skied like maniac for twenty years, went ice-skating, horse back riding, played tennis, soccer and volleyball, waterskied, wakeboarded and surfed. And I never broke a bone. Then I cook Thaksgiving dinner, I slip, and I end up with a fractured knee cap. Seriously. What the hell?!?

Anyhow, after this first realization sunk in another one dawned on me. Six weeks with crutches is a long freaking time. I mean, in six weeks we'll be in 2010 and Christmas will have come and gone, and so will have New Years. And for this long stretch of time I'll be limping around like little Timmy, only with a less cheery attitude and more alcohol in my free hand.

A bunch of questions immediately arose. How am I going to decorate the house? What about the Christmas tree? Who's going to cook now that I can't stand for more than 2 minutes without getting tired? How stupid am I going to look in my fabulous red dress, killer heels and crutches? What am I going to do about our plans to go to New Orleans next week?

The only one I could answer right away was the one about the cooking. I'll still cook. I'll take a chair and sit by the stove and limp around the kitchen to gather ingredients, but I'll cook nevertheless. Otherwise I'm going to go crazy and crazy right now is no good since I'm already pissed. So I cheered myself up by making one of my favorite soups in the world, my version of the US Senate ham and bean soup. I had leftover ham from when my friends were here for Thanksgiving and also some leftover mashed potatoes. Bean were in the pantry and my fridge was packed with fresh herbs -what else could I ask for? (Besides a healed knee, that is.)

HAM AND BEAN SOUP

One ham bone (with a little meat attached)
4 cups leftover ham meat, cut into strips
8 cups of water
Salt and pepper to taste
2 sprigs of thyme
A few sage leaves
2 large onions
2 cups leftover mashed potatoes
1 pound navy beans, soaked overnight

Place ham bone, water and one chopped onion in a large soup pot. Bring to a boil, add thyme and lower heat to low. Simmer for at least four hours.

Remove and discard solids. Add beans to ham broth, season with salt and pepper and add sage. Simmer on low for two hours, until beans are tender. Add a chopped onion, mashed potatoes and ham meat. Simmer for another 20 minutes, until warm. Adjust seasoning and serve.

Two squash soup

I've been incredibly lazy lately. I had all these grand ideas for the blog and was determined to post on a daily -or at least regular- basis. And then it happened. I got slammed at work and have been writing so much that when I get home the last thing I want to do is write some more. And I have also been distracted by many different problems and thoughts, the biggest of all being that I'm seriously thinking about starting my own business and doing so in Italy. I know, I know. That's why I've been distracted: I have been wrecking my brain, trying to understand what I want and what I need.

Anyways, I was sitting at my desk this morning and all of the sudden I realized that it's October 22nd and that I'm not ready for Halloween. I have no costume ideas and no parties to go to, except for my parents' party where, I'm hoping, I won't have to cook too much. Crazy, right? For some weird reason I'm not even in the mood to cook these days. Maybe it's the weather. After a couple of beautiful, cooler days the temperature has gone up again and I abruptly stopped dreaming of stews and soups and turned the a/c on again.

But, before I got preoccupied, before I got lazy and before the temperature went up I made this lovely squash soup and I have to say that I can't wait for winter to start for real so that I can make it more often. It's absolutely delicious.

TWO SQUASH SOUP

1 acorn squash, halved and seeded
1 butternut squash, halved and seeded
1 tablespoon olive oil
Cooking spray
2 sliced yellow onions
2 teaspoons minced garlic
4 cups water
3/4 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon ground cumin
1/4 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/4 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
Dash of ground allspice

Preheat oven to 400°.

Rub the insides of each squash half with olive oil, place squash halves cut side up on a baking sheet coated with cooking spray and bake at 400° for 30 minutes or until tender.Scoop pulp out.

Heat a large Dutch oven over medium-high heat. Coat pan with cooking spray. Add onion; sauté until tender. Add garlic; sauté 1 minute. Add squash, 4 cups water, and remaining ingredients; bring to a boil. Reduce heat, and simmer 20 minutes.

Blend until smooth with an immersion blender.

Pumpkin and smoked paprika soup

Although the folks at Weather.com and Weather Channel have clearly lied about the temperatures and the humidity dropping, I'm still cooking as if it were fall for real. So pumpkin it is again, this time used to make soup. In the near future, if it ever does cool off I want to make pumpkin risotto and pumpkin ravioli, but for now soup it is because this one is great served both hot or cold.

Either way it's incredibly easy to make and the results are definitely worth it if you like a nice combination of sweet and smoky flavors like I do.

PUMPKIN AND SMOKED PAPRIKA SOUP

Makes 4 servings

1 tablespoon extra virgin olive oil
1 red bell pepper
1 yellow bell pepper
2 carrots
1 onion
2 tablespoons smoked paprika
2 garlic cloves, sliced
1 quart good quality chicken stock (or veegtable stock if you want to make it completely vegetarian)
Salt and pepper
1 15-ounce can pumpkin

Chop vegetables and heat oil in a dutch oven casserole. When oil is warm add chopped vegetables, season with salt and pepper to taste and cook everything on medium high heat for about 10 minutes.

Add paprika and garlic and toast for a minute, stirring vigorously.

Process soup with an immersion blender or in a regular blender, then put the pureed vegetables back in the casserole. Add remaining broth, pumpkin, and more salt, eppper and paprika if you'd like. Warm, stirring frequently , for about 10 minutes.

Pho

For those of you who don't know it yet, I am a restaurant critic. I literally eat (and write about it) for a living which yes, is cool as hell. The coolest thing -other than the newspaper paying for my meals- is getting to try new cuisines and restaurants and, although Naples doesn't really offer anything too crazy, lately a bunch of ethnic restaurants have opened and most of them have become my favorites. Case in point: a little place called Noodle Saigon, responsible for introducing me to the delicious, heavenly pho.
Pho isn't just a Vietnamese soup. Pho is the national dish of Vietnam and it's such a satisfying yet simple dish I could easily eat it every day. Star anise, cinnamon, chiles... I had to have a recipe. So I bought a Vietnamese cook book and have been made my own pho ever since. I make it extremly spicy, but that's just me. If you don't want it too spicy don't marinate the meat in chili garlic sauce and go easy on the siracha.

PHO BO

For broth:
1 qt. water
2 beef buillion cubes
2 pho bo cubes (if you can't find them at the Asian store use one more beef cube instead)
6 pieces of star anise
2 sticks of cinnamon

Combine all ingredients and simmer for 20 minutes. When the broth is ready keep it warm but not boiling. Fish the solids out and discard them.

Other ingredients:
Rice noodles (medium size). I use 1 package (1 pound) for 4 people.
1 onion, thinly sliced
1 can of bean sprouts, drained
a bunch of basil, chopped
a bunch of cilantro, chopped
2 small Thai peppers per person, chopped (or less if they are too spicy to handle)
10 green onions, chopped
1 1/2 lbs beef tenderloin, thinly sliced

Extras:
Siracha hot sauce
Soy sauce
Plum (Hoisin) sauce

After you prepare the broth, soak the noodles in it for about 10 minutes or until ready. Be careful because they overcook easily.

In the mean time, chop and prepare all the other ingredients.

When the noodles are ready place them in 4 bowls. Put the broth back on the stove and bring it to a boil. In the mean time put meat, vegetables and herbs in each bowl over the noodles. When the broth is very hot pour some into each bowl. The meat will begin to cook immediately and will be ready to eat in 2 minutes. Serve with extra sauces on the side.

Barley and pesto soup

I love soup. Even in the summer, even in Florida, I can't go for more than a few days without eating a comforting bowl of steamy goodness. Barely soup was a staple of my childhood, something they cooked in the Northeast of Italy with pieces of pork and speck. I make many variations of it, depending on the season and on whatever I get at the farmer's market, but one of my favorites is this version, with fava beans, sweet baby peas and pesto. I especially enjoy this recipe in the summer months because pesto and basil make it a refreshing alternative to most soups -and also because for once my basil plant is striving so I want to use it before it dies. If you don't have fava beans handy, just double up on the sweet peas -it's a variation I make sometimes when I don't feel like driving to store to buy just one ingredient.

Barley and pesto soup
(for 4)

Barley, 1 cup
Vegetable broth 8 cups
Salt and pepper, to taste
Frozen sweet peas, 1 1/2 cups
Fava beans, 1 1/2 cups
Canned corn, half can
A carrot, diced
Pesto, 4 tablespoons

In a large dutch oven, pour vegetable broth -or make it with cubes. This is a simple summer recipe, so it's not worth making stock from scratch. Bring broth to a boil, add barley, stir and reduce heat. Simmer for about a half hour or until cooked (but not overcooked and mushy).

Add peas, fava beans, corn and carrots. Season to taste with salt and pepper and cook for 5 minutes, until veggies are done but still somewhat crunchy.

Remove from heat and stir in pesto. Serve immediately, garnishing each bowl with a basil leaf.