A new year has commenced, under the skin flows and tickles a desire of renewal. The desire to put a full-stop and write a new paragraph of our life, perhaps more fluent and exciting than the previous one.
Restart from within, regenerate ourselves to welcome newthings that will come, perhaps with the spring. Return to the earth, to the slow rhythm marked by nature – now still resting – to the simple nurishing seasonal products.
Even my granny, who in her life never gave up on a cooked meal, after Christmas holidays was seized by the need to eat light. And so in January, obviously without renouncing to tinker in the kitchen, she were used to prepare giant portions of her famous “witch’s soup”.
She called it like that. I asked myself several times why. Only two indications to prepare it: many different seasonal vegetables and all strictly green (or white).
Chard, spinach, savoy cabbage, turnips, black cabbage, cauliflower, romanesco cabbage, celery, leek, fennel, onion, zucchini, potatoes. Spontaneous herbs harvested in fields such as nettle, dandelion, borage, while chards are welcome. Perhaps this is the origin of the name, because it sounds like a potion? All veggies together, all cut into thin strips or small cubes.
No broth, just lightly salted water. About twenty minutes of cooking and just a little extra virgin olive oil to season. A detox soup of extreme simplicity yet with its own taste, surprisingly almost always the same despite the mix of vegetables that you put in it. I wondered if that primary note in the end is the true taste of antioxidants or chlorophyll.
Moreover, while containing only green vegetables with a very limited caloric intake, this is a very satiating dish. Not so much to surprise, though. It is a dish very rich in those nutritive principles (vitamins, minerals and anti-oxidants) that our body extremely needs!
This is the recipe of the witch’s detox soup I made with the green vegetables I found yesterday at the greengrocer’s plus those laying in the fridge. You can indulge yourself. You can also omit the potatoes for an even more light version, but potatoes, you know, are diuretic, so it is worth putting at least one!
I use to add some turmenic powder to even increase the anti-oxidant power of this soup!
Ingredients
- 200 g of chards
- 2 coasts of celery
- 2 potatoes
- 1 onion
- 1 leek
- ¼ of cabbage
- ¼ of Roman cabbage
- 1 fennel
- 1 tablespoon of extra virgin olive oil
- 1 handful of coarse salt
Instructions
- Clean all the vegetables. Cut them into thin strips, wheels or cubes.
- In a large pot pour a tablespoon of extra virgin olive oil, then add the vegetables. Add cold water to cover vegetables and a handful of rock salt.
- Cook over a low heat for 30 minutes starting from the boil.
- Serve hot, with a round of extra virgin olive oil, a sprinkling of Parmigiano Reggiano cheese and a slice of toasted bread.
- I use to add some turmenic powder to even increase its anti-oxidant power!
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[…] of the year when vegetables are the pride of the kitchen. The table filled with green soups (like my gran’s which soup), pasta with veggies, savory pies and almost daily cooked […]