Sep 09, 2012
Wow. What a big soup indeed. Not only did my husband offer the unprovoked, "this is the best soup I've ever had," there were clean bowls at the end of the meal- four of them. The significance? My children ate vegetables- and liked it.
First of all, I'm one of these cooks that shamefully can't leave well enough alone and cannot, will not, has not, ever left a recipe as is. It's not in my genes. Graciously, Chef John gives us all creative license in his video to waver from the recipe and I did.
So, let me tell you what I changed, mostly due to what I had on hand and wanted to use up, and also because I'm pretty sure I was in the wrong grocery store to find "cranberry beans."
I used frozen chopped onions- (I know, but it's what I had) two 14 oz cans diced tomatoes, 1 can small white navy beans in lieu of the cranberries, and a large bunch of romaine lettuce instead of swiss chard and cabbage. I refused to pay $4.99 for the chard and I forgot to buy the cabbage. I did throw in about a half cut of large carrot dices that held up well, and fresh green beans cut into 1/2 in pieces. Lovely.
That being said, everything else I left untouched- except- I did cut a bit of the parm rind and throw it in while it simmered- awesome call.
It was amazing. We had a beautiful loaf of three cheese garlic bread from our local bakery to dredge up the beautiful sauce between hearty bites. I will be placing this recipe in my PERMANENT collection, and you should too.
—ahansen
