****~ (4/5)

This is the second recipe from my friend’s dinner party this past weekend. I want to thank my friend again for sharing her recipes. She made a Spinach and Ham Quiche and we had Butternut Squash Soup for appetizer. The soup was a really good appetizer. It was not a boring butternut squash soup, and to my surprise, it had a blend of different spices. Nice soup to start off the meal.

Level: Medium

Cook Time: 1 hour
Serving: 6 – 8

1 butternut squash
1 acorn squash
1 medium onion, diced
3 cloves of garlic
1 table spoon minced ginger
1 tea spoon curry powder
2 green apples, corded, peeled and diced
2/3 cup sherry wine
1 pinch of cayenne pepper
3 tablespoon olive oil
5 cups of vegetable stock
salt & black pepper

Preheat oven to 400 degrees F.

Cut the butternut squash and acorn squash in half. Take the seeds out, and put them face down on a roasting pan. Roast in 400F oven for 45 minutes until soft. Scoop out the roasted squash, blend it with 5 cups of vegetable stock.

In a pan on medium heat, add olive oil, and sauté onion, garlic and ginger together until onion is soft. Add curry powder, cayenne pepper, stir and cook for about a minute. Add in apples, and 2/3 cup sherry wine. Simmer the ingredients for 10minutes until the apples are soft. Scoop the ingredients out of the pan into a blender, to purée.

In a separate pot, add the squash and apple purée. Mix, and add salt and black pepper to taste, simmer for 5 minutes and serve.

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***** (5/5)

Let the Viviani madness continue! I know I’ve been making a lot of food by this guy in the last little while, I should switch it up soon.. and I will, as soon as I buy another cookbook or go scour the internets for recipes.

The soup du jour, or yester-jour was Sweet Onion and Legumes Soup. First question: Legumes? First thing that comes to my mind are beans, but what kind of beans? I took the suggestion of a fellow fan to use Sugar Snap Peas, Snow Peas, and Baby Limas. For the White Wine, I chose a Sauvignon Blanc which was suggested as the wine to use for beginner cooks. Cooking the soup was a breeze in comparison to other recipes. It seemed that all I had to do was chop vegetables and throw things in a pot, then wait. Super easy.

End product soup I got was served in a bowl on top of a piece of crunchy toasted bread. It.. was.. awesome. I was skeptical because I wasn’t sure that I’d like to have a soggy piece of bread in my soup, but was pleasantly surprised when I tasted it. I like my soups more brothy than stew-like, so I added a little more vegetable broth and water than suggested, which I guess worked out for me. Every spoonful seemed like there was a little something else that hit my taste buds starting with the broth itself, to the legumes/onions, and then the flavour drenched slice of bread.

Overall, a give this recipe a full score because it was super tastey and ultra easy to make. An added bonus for me was that I was skeptical of how much I’d like it since I kind of like my soups to have meat in them, but I didn’t feel like I needed it here. Great soup!

Video!

Fabio Viviani
Carabaccia Fiorentina – Sweet Onion and Legumes Soup

Recipe as written by Fabio Viviani on his Facebook page:

5 tbsp ExtraVirgin Olive Oil
2 carrot, chopped
1 celery stalk, chopped
2 large Sprig of Basil, roughly chopped
2 lbs medium Onion, finely chopped
4 cup of Vegetable broth
1 cup of White Wine
1/2 lbs mixed fresh Legumes
4 tbsp of grated Parmigiano Reggiano
6 Sliced of toasted very crunchy Bread
Salt and Pepper to taste

Heat the Olive Oil in a Pot big enough to fit all the ingredients, add the Celery, Carrots and the Basil and cook for 5 minutes on High. Add the Onion and 1/3 of the Broth and cook on Low heat till the liquid is completely gone ( about 1 hour ). Bring the heat up and add the Wine and reduce it completely, add now the Legumes, and the rest of the broth and simmer until the legumes are tender. Add Salt and pepper to taste. Place the bread in 6 bowl, pour the soup on the bread and sprinkle with the Parmesan.

This recipes and many more are part of the regional cooking of Italy.

Enjoy and Buon Appetito.