Whatever-You-Want "Minestrone"

The weather turned frigid early this week, the leaves suddenly shriveled up and fell en masse on my yard, and my big Le Creuset pot started wailing plaintively from the shelf, "soooouuuuppp! soooouuuupp!"  The cast iron musn't be ignored. 

I was lurking around on Four and 20 Blackbirds (warning: paleo people, avert your eyes from the pie) and found a fantastic minestrone recipe that I took and made into a Frankenstein's Monster of a tasty soup.  The original recipe is apparently found in Soup: A Way of Life by Barbara Kafka, which I'll have to get my hands on ASAP.  Please to enjoy.

The beginning is where I diverge from the original pretty significantly.  I wanted some big protein in my soup, and chickens were on sale at the market, so I picked up a free-range bird for about $7.  Nice!  I also wanted to multitask my chicken cooking and spruce up my cartons of chicken stock at the same time, so I cooked the whole chicken in 50/50 purchased chicken broth and water and added some bits of vegetables, herbs, and spices I had in the fridge/pantry.  You can absolutely skip this step and use leftover or a storebought rotisserie chicken and purchased chicken broth or water and go ahead to the soup part instead.

Here's what you need for the "long version" (this whole recipe fed 6-7 hungry crossfitters, maybe 12 normal people? Heh. But really, it would be excellent to make a big batch of this and freeze it for a rainy day.)

1 whole chicken, as close to pastured as you can find/afford, innards removed, washed and dried
4 C purchased low sodium chicken broth, or homemade chicken stock
Enough cold water to mostly cover the chicken (as in the photo)
Aromatic vegetables, use what you've got on hand, or: 1/2 onion, the celery leaves and tops from a bunch of celery, 1 roughly chopped carrot, 1T peppercorns, 4 whole cloves, several sprigs of fresh thyme, sage, and bay leaves tied together with kitchen twine
Kosher salt

Put the chicken and vegetables and herbs in a big stock pot (mine is 11qt) and cover everything with the chicken broth and water.  Set over medium or medium-high heat and bring to a simmer.  You DON'T want it to boil vigorously.  This will ensure that the chicken meat stays tender.  You'll probably notice a fair bit of greyish looking scum float to the top.  Just skim this off with a spoon and discard it as it rises.  The scum will quit after a while and now you can just let it simmer away for about an hour (turn the chicken over halfway through if it's not all the way submerged) or until the chicken is cooked through (170°F in the thickest part of the breast).  Remove the chicken to a bowl or carving board to cool.
Now turn the heat up so that the stock boils.  You want to reduce the stock slightly to intensify the flavor, so let it boil and taste it periodically for flavor.  Also start adding some kosher salt to your taste.  It took me about 30 minutes of boiling and maybe 1/2T of salt to get a flavor I was happy with.
Meanwhile, once the chicken won't burn your hands off, get all the meat off the bones and remove all the skin and yucky bits, and shred the meat into bite-size chunks in a bowl.  Set this in the fridge for later.
Once you're happy with the stock, strain out all the vegetables and herbs, pressing on the vegetables in the strainer with a spoon to get all the tasty flavor out of them.  Put the stock in the fridge.

Here's where you can start if you're not neurotic and want to use pre-made chicken and stock:


I bet this would be good with any combination of vegetables that sound good to you.  I used the ones suggested in the original recipe this time, but I might start improvising with other things in the future.  The pesto is key, though.  Do not skip the pesto.


1T butter
1T olive oil
1 onion, chopped
3 carrots, sliced into rounds
3 celery ribs, 1/4" dice
1.5lb. white potatoes, peeled and 1/4" dice
2/3lb. green cabbage, thinly shredded
3 yellow squash, 1/4" dice
1 bunch swiss chard (rainbow chard or red chard are other names), ribs removed and sliced into thin ribbons
1 bunch of spinach, washed, stemmed, and sliced
1 can of diced tomatoes, or 14 oz. diced fresh tomatoes in season
the rind from 6oz. Parmesan cheese
3 cloves of garlic, chopped
5-7C chicken stock
shredded cooked chicken meat
Pesto (recipe below, or use storebought)


Heat butter and olive oil together over medium-high heat in a large stockpot (I love cast iron!), add onion and saute until beginning to soften, about 5 minutes.  Add carrots, celery, and potatoes, saute 5 minutes.  Add cabbage and squash, saute 5 minutes.  Add chard and/or spinach, tomato, garlic, cheese rind, and stock, bring to a simmer and let everything cook for about 15 minutes.  When 5 minutes remain, add chicken and pesto.  Serve with shredded Parmesan cheese and maybe some sliced avocado!


Pesto!
2C fresh basil leaves, washed and dried
3 cloves of garlic
handful of shredded Parmesan cheese
Salt and Pepper
a few tablespoons of olive oil, enough to bind everything together


Put everything but the oil in a food processor and chop finely, then add the oil slowly with the blade of the food processor running, until a uniform sauce is formed.  Add the whole mess to the soup pot and get ready to eat!!