Recipe: Soupe au Pistou

 

Soup au Pistou

by Marisa Fontana

This recipe is a favorite in our family and one that my French mother-in-law taught me and the flavors are as Provençale as it gets! The pistou is a paste made from fresh basil, garlic, salt and olive oil. In this recipe, I also add two small cooked potatoes to the pistou and help thicken up the soup. 

It is a versatile recipe to use when you have an abundance of summer vegetables – think tomatoes and zucchini. Usually also included are green beans, carrots and some form of dried beans. When I saw the fresh bunch of basil this week, I couldn’t resist making a pot of soupe au pistou immediately. I skipped the green beans and used a can of cannellini beans for a quicker soup.

For portioning, I used half the carrots from the farm share, all of the summer squash, single tomato, two small potatoes, and the entire bunch of basil. This made a large pot of soup.

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Ingredients

• 1 head of garlic, peeled
• 1 large tomato, diced
• 3 summer squash, diced
• 1 bunch of basil, destemmed 
• 1 can of cannellini beans
• 2 potatoes, peeled
• Roughly 6-8 small carrots from Cream of the Crop. If using typical sized carrots, 2-3 carrots diced

Step 1. 
Boil large pot of water with the two potatoes and salt (rougly 1 teaspoon) (this water will not be thrown away, so don’t over salt)
After roughly 10-15 minutes, throw in diced tomatoes, summer squash and carrots into the water.

Step 2: Make the Pistou
When potatoes are soft (around 20-25 minutes), scoop them out and drop in a blender
Add to blender basil leaves and peeled garlic (yes, I used an entire head! But feel free to cut back by half if you prefer a lighter taste), top up generously with olive oil and a ladle of cooking water
Blend on high until mixture becomes a paste. 

Step 3.
Pour the pistou paste into the cooking water while stirring gently to combine
Add salt and pepper to taste.

Recipe: Collard Pesto

 Collard Pesto

by Marisa Fontana

This recipe gives a fresher spin to a vegetable we most often see in a braised / boiled format.

Perhaps I use the term pesto quite loosely. But we can definitely apply the ‘pesto’ method to another form of green leafy vegetable instead. As long as the other ingredients roughly fall in line with the usual suspects in a traditional pesto, I find the result to be just as delicious as a pasta sauce. 

Also I’m trying to incorporate all the ingredients I need from either what we received from the CSA or what’s in the pantry, to avoid a grocery store run for just one ingredient. The margin for error is quite large for this recipe, so feel free to make substitutions as needed on your side as well!

Ingredients

• 2 stalk of fresh garlic including head - Roughly chop up fresh garlic, removing the tough stem and outer peels
• ½ cup walnuts (only nuts I had at home, but feel free to use what you have available)
• ½ lemon for juice
• 1/3 cup parmigiano Reggiano
• 1 bunch of collard greens
• Salt and pepper to taste
• ½ cup olive oil 

   


Step 1. 
Prepping collard greens – destem collard greens and clean thoroughly; roughly tear up the leaves
In a large pot, bring water to boil. Season liberally with salt
Boil collard greens for about 2-3 minutes to soften then place in ice bath
Wring out water from the leaves
Tip – I keep the water here in the pot and reuse for my pasta


Step 2.
In a food processor, combine garlic, walnuts, cheese, lemon juice, collard greens and season generously with salt and pepper and olive oil
Pulse for about 1 minute until well combined
If mixture is looking too dry, add in more olive oil or a ladle of collard greens water or pasta water if looking for a lighter mix

    

I cooked gluten free penne for the dish. After draining the pasta, I dolloped in the pesto sauce and added in a cup of reserved pasta cooking water