Channeling all Italian Grandma’s out there. This soup is um, um good.
So, as I have probably mentioned in past posts, my garden sucks this year. More weeds than vegetables. We had such a cool rainy spring which made the weeds more happy than the veges! It’s so bad that there are not enough hours in the day to pull them all! Uugh. Anyway, my zucchini plant is having no problems with production along with my butternut and acorn squash and my cabbage and celery is doing great too. Otherwise total bust. Last week we had another crazy week of rain and I neglected to go down and water. On Friday, I went down and discovered that hidden in the weeds and underneath a large cabbage leaf, a really large zucchini. Holy cow my garden gave birth to a eight and a half pound behemoth! Check out the pictures below. I brought “him” to a party on Friday night. It made for some good laughs for sure. I still need to break into him and decide if I want to shred up to freeze for the winter.
Since zucchini is starting to stock up in my kitchen, I decided to do a zucchini recipe this week. I got this recipe from a friend last year. It’s his Italian Grandma’s recipe. The recipe card kinda made me laugh though. It lists the ingredients but is very vague on the herbs and spices. Kinda like how an Italian Grandma cooks. A little bit of this and a little bit of that! Love it! I adapted this recipe a tad and measured things out. It’s really delicious. Make sure you have a lot of Romano cheese and warm crusty bread on hand. It really makes the soup extra special!
On a quick note to my Denver friends. The Denver Chili Fest is September 19th for 10 to 6 pm at LuLu’s Farm in Brighton. The organizers of the event asked me to be a cooking demonstrator and teach people new ways to use our beloved green chili’s! I’m pretty darn excited and a little nervous, there will be 5000 people who will attend this event! Come on out to buy your roasted chili’s and fresh produce, listen to great music, check out many different food trucks and vendors, meet the men of the 2015 Denver Fireman’s calendar (this is why I signed up for this event btw) and watch me and my friend Julie cook! This is a dog friendly event to boot! So, save the date. I’ll remind you later too! 🙂
Italian Zucchini Soup (Giambotte)
Ingredients
- Olive oil
- 4 medium zucchini diced
- 1 large onion diced
- 4 cloves garlic minced
- 1 cup fresh tomatoes diced
- 1 bell pepper diced (I used a yellow one)
- 2 medium white potatoes diced (thin skinned ones)
- 15 oz can tomato sauce I used homemade
- 1/2 can tomato paste
- 2 1/2 tsp salt
- 2 tsp pepper
- 2 tbs fresh oregano chopped
- 1/4 cup fresh basil chopped
- 2 bay leaves
- 4 cups chicken broth
- Romano cheese
- Good bread
Instructions
- Coat the bottom of a large stock pot with olive oil. Add the zucchini, onions, garlic, tomatoes, bell pepper, potatoes and salt and pepper cover and let simmer for 20 minutes.
- Stir in tomato paste, tomato sauce, bay leaves, oregano, basil and chicken broth. Cover and simmer for 30 minutes.
- Serve with lots of Romano cheese and warmed bread.
All 8.5 pounds of zucchini love.
We are stilling laughing about the zucchini that my garden gave birth to. This might as well been a “baby” shower instead of a lovely dinner party!
Posin’ wit da peppa! Just loaded up on all kind of goodies from LuLu’s Farm. Time to develop some recipes!