At 8 o’clock this morning, Greenwich meant time, it became possible to email entries to Blog From Italy and enter the recipe contest to find the best Italian autumn soup.
A Soup is a Soup 
Understand just what constitutes soup in Italy is not all that easy. Many innocent tourists order ‘zuppa’, and what they will find in front of them is a steaming bowl of liquid. Great! Looks like soup, tastes like it too. End of story.
No, sorry, not quite. You see what many visitors to Italy may overlook is that there are other soups on the menus too, it’s just that Italians do not refer to them as soups. The words they are more likely to use are ‘minestra’, ‘brodo’, ‘veluto’ and ‘crema’.
My apologies if I’m ladling on so many soup related terms, but then Italy has never been known for its simplicity. If you have not gone potty by now, then proceed to the next paragraph. Otherwise, go make soup.
That is from Alex’ opening day post. When you read it, you will discover that there are so many more opportunities to be Italian and also be soup, that you may boil over with ideas. You can enter five recipes if you are that creative.
I heard taste testers talking via email yesterday about how excited they are to see what there will be. They expect a fall and winter full of tasty new soups to make, and when that cold and damp season begins, we’ll be ready to slurp them all down!
September 12th, 2008
Today alisonk came to lunch. She is doing a low carbohydrate regime, so I had to whip up some flour-free goodies. For a first course in place of pasta or risotto, we had a mushroom soup. I made the basic soup a day ago because most soups get better for sitting. When I reheated it I added the part that might not have refrigerated well.
As you can see, it is very dark and filled with mushrooms. The following recipe made soup for two.
No Carbohydrate Mushroom Soup
1 pound (.5 kilo) champignon or button mushrooms, cleaned and sliced. stems chopped
2 tablespoons butter
about .75 quart or liter of strong beef broth
salt to taste
heavy cream to taste
In a heavy pot I sautéed the mushrooms in the butter until they were quite browned and almost dried. Then I added the beef broth. I allowed this to cook and cook down several times, adding water to bring it up to level each time. Because I used “Better Than Bouillon” for the broth I added and needed no salt. When the whole thing was thoroughly infused, I poured it into a container and refrigerated it.
Today, a few minutes before I needed it, I warmed it up almost to a simmer and then added heavy cream, stirring it in, until it tasted balanced and rich. I ladled it into two deep bowl/cups and this is what happened. 
The verdict was “Good!”
For main course, or secondo, we ate Pollo fra Diavolo from this page.
With it we ate a cabbage dish from Puglia that I once had made into a pasta, but today served it as it was meant to be. Because there is no chance at bread, pasta or dessert, I changed the fat used from oil to duck fat, but it will be good without it if you are not as lucky as we are.
Cavolo Pugliese or Pugliese cabbage
This would have been enough for four people normally, but this was a slender menu indeed.
about 3 cups of slivered fresh cabbage
2 small hot red peppers peperoncini
about 2 tablespoons oil or fat
salt to taste
5 cherry tomatoes, quartered
Heat a big frying pan with the fat you will use. Crumble the pepper into it (or take a pinch from a jar of crushed red pepper.) Add the cabbage and toss it about a bit to get the fat distributed. Continue to cook it, stirring once in a while, until some of the edges start to brown and there are no really hard parts left. Add about 1/2 teaspoon or a decent sized pinch of salt, stir and taste. Add salt until it seems right to you. Toss in the tomato pieces and stir until they wilt a bit. Serve.
I had prepared a salad, but there was no room left for it. We had eaten well.
March 4th, 2008
