Last night for dinner at Antico Casale I started with Acquacotta, the traditional soup of rural Maremma region in Tuscany. It’s a tasty mix of foods such as toasted bread, onions, celery, parmesan cheese, white wine, olive oil,  and a few other ingredients, with an egg on top. It originated in the non-culinary hands of frugal Maremma workers, like coalmen who would scrape together any foods they could find, and poor farmers who’d mix together their harvest. They turned it into a mushy, stewy, zuppa, and now chefs all over the place have put their own spin on it.

This description, as originally told to me by resort owner Marta Pelligrini, made me reflect upon my own sad state of refrigerator back home in New York City. If memory serves me correct, I believe there is an onion in there that I’ve been meaning to use. I also have a half loaf of bread (although whole wheat) and a few eggs left from the last time I went food shopping, which doesn’t happen very often. And for some reason I tend to buy celery when I do go, because it’s healthy and I think I’ll end up dipping it in something, but I don’t have dip. So yes, I have celery too. Parmesan cheese? What a novel idea to put it ON TOP something! White wine, obviously. Olive oil, check. Salt… come on, what do you take me for? Toaster oven for the bread, by golly I’ve got that too! This wasn’t just the soup of the Maremma. This was the soup for New Yorkers who are terrible at food shopping.

Here is the recipe from Chef Claudio Bovicelli of Antico Casale di Scansano, the man who taught me how to make pasta from scratch. Even if I never master The Rolling Pin quite the way he hoped, there’s always Acquacotta.

ACQUACOTTA RECIPE:

Ingredients for 4 people
3 ribs of celery, 4 onions, 700 gr. of spinach, 4 eggs, extra virgin olive oil, half a tablespoon of tomato sauce, 4 tomatoes, 8 slices of toasted bread, half a glass of white wine, water, salt, pepper, Parmesan cheese as much as you like.

How to prepare it
Brown an onion in a pan with extra virgin olive oil. When the onion is slightly pinkish, add celery, onions and wine. Let wine evaporate for a few minutes, then add tomato sauce, tomatoes and water. Let it cook for 20 minutes, then add beaten eggs and salt. Toast the slices of bread and place them into the plate. Pour the broth on them. Then sprinkle Parmesan cheese over it.

Today’s WIN ITALIA Question:

(To win luggage filled with souvenirs from Tuscany and Rome)

What’s your secret go-to recipe or concoction when nothing’s left in the fridge?

Spa-rrividerci!

Lost in translation through many generations of cultural blending the Italian Wedding Soup or “Minestra Maritata” as it is truly called is thought to be a dish served at Italian weddings. In Italian, Minestra Maritata translates to “married soup” and many assumed that this soup is a traditional Italian dish for weddings. The real meaning behind the soup is that it contains a mixture of meat, heavy broth, green vegetables, and pasta which go together so well they seem to marry. Today, many Italians swear by the misconstrued definition and serve Italian Wedding Soup at weddings. Facts and traditions aside, this soup is so good that if you wanted to serve it at a wedding no one would stop you. Here is the recipe.

Ingredients

MEATBALLS:
- 1/2 pound ground beef
- 1/2 pound ground pork or turkey
- 1 egg
- 1/4 cup bread crumbs
- 1 tablespoon finely chopped parsley
- 1/2 clove garlic, minced
- 1/2 teaspoon salt
- 1/4 teaspoon pepper
SOUP:
- 4 cups chicken broth
- 2 cups fresh spinach, chopped or 1 small box of frozen
- 1/4 cup Parmesan cheese
- 8 ounces soup pasta, acini de pepe or orzo pasta are good choices

Serving Size: 1 cup
Servings: 6
Enter desired servings:
Prep Time: 1 hour
Cook Time: 45 minutes

MEATBALLS:
Add all the meatball ingredients together in a large bowl. Mix the ingredients together using your hands until evenly distributed.
Form meat into small meatballs by rolling in your hands.
Place the meatballs on a lightly greased shallow baking pan. Place in an oven preheated to 350°F and bake for 25 to 30 minutes or until browned.
Note: The meatballs can also be browned on the stovetop if desired.

SOUP:
Cook soup pasta as directed on the package. Do not overcook. The pasta should be firm when added to the soup.
Drain the pasta after cooking.
While the pasta is cooking add the chicken broth to a large saucepan and bring to a boil.
If using fresh spinach, add to the boiling broth and cook for 5 minutes or until spinach is tender. If using frozen spinach, drain well before adding to the broth.
Add the meatballs and pasta. Bring the soup back to a simmer.
Stir in the Parmesan cheese and serve.

Image Courtesy of recipetips.com

Give the squash some post-Thanksgiving love.

Gourds get a bad rap. The pumpkin gets big play on Thanksgiving and then gets ignored the rest of the year–and it’s the most popular of the winter veggie family! When’s the last time you bucked the trend and enjoyed pumpkin or squash when it wasn’t Thanksgiving?

It might be time. Gourds deserve the limelight after December ends. A squash or pumpkin dish can be hearty, warming, low in calories, and is chock-full of crucial vitamins like A & C. You can even buy squash pre-peeled at most grocery stores, eliminating most of the prep work. Try this spicy, warming squash soup from allrecipes.com:

Directions

What’s your favorite squash dish?

The Little Luxury: Eating soup in bed

Relationship Status: Old friends

The thing you’ll love most: Climbing under the bedcovers to drink a mug of hot soup is the only effective way, on a cold winter’s night, to directly apply warmth both inside and outside of your body. Added bonus of applying delicious to your stomach.

It might be just me but…: I like those packets of instant miso soup. The dehydrated tofu leaves a lot to be desired, but the seaweed is picture perfect and the miso flavor is strong. It’s probably better to eat soup that wasn’t powdered a mere 5 minutes before, but in a pinch this will do.

Perfect pairing because: Despite being simple and free, eating soup in bed feels delightfully indulgent. You will feel like a Victorian invalid, in the fun way.

Advice from me to you: Use a big mug rather than a bowl, and choose a sippable soup to minimize spillage (that means save clam chowder for the table, sloppy.)

A Good Reminder That: Daily pleasures don’t have to be something bought, and keeping the cold out can be fun in itself.

The price: Whatever you had to pay to make/buy soup

Hot Stone Scale: 6 out of 6

This Little Luxury Report was brought to you by: Meghan