Provencal Vegetable Soup with Pistou

An indulgent Holiday season followed by a work trip to food mecca Charleston, SC and then a three day weekend of excess in Las Vegas means that we have officially arrived at pocket-book-and-waistline-friendly-recipe month on Accidental Syrup.  I hesitate to preface this post this way because the recipe honestly is scrumptious.  While low fat and low cal its packed with hearty beans and vegetables and the bright flavors of garlic and herbs.  I googled "hearty soups" and stumbled across a fantastic sampling from Saveur magazine.  I thought a mix of vegetables would be particularly light and healthy (and as we know I lean French these days) so I jumped on the Soupe au Pistou.  (Note: pistou is in essence the French equivalent of pesto.)

The great thing about this recipe is that you could easily use whatever mix of veggies strikes your fancy.  I took a few liberties from Saveur's original recipe.

Ingredients for the soup:

2 ounces of pancetta or bacon, diced
1 large onion, chopped
2 large stalks of celery including the tops, diced
3 carrots, peeled and diced
3 garlic cloves, grated or minced
5 sprigs of fresh thyme, chopped
1/2 teaspoon red pepper flakes
2 bay leaves
1 zucchini, diced
1/2 a small head of green cabbage- halved again, cored and sliced into quarter inch strips (approx 4 generous cups total)
1- 28 oz can of diced tomatoes with juices (reserve one tablespoon of chunks for the pistou)
8-9 cups (or 2 cartons) chicken stock
2- 15 oz cans of cannellini beans, drained and rinsed

**Omit the pancetta/bacon and swap out vegetable stock for the chicken stock to make this vegetarian friendly.

Heat a large heavy bottom pot with a tablespoon of olive oil over medium heat. Add the pancetta/bacon and cook until crispy and golden brown.  Remove the bits from the pot with a slotted spoon (drain on a papertowel to the side) and add one more tablespoon of olive oil to the pot with the renderings.  Next add the onion, carrot and celery and cook for 5-7 minutes until the onions are soft but not brown.  Stir in the garlic, thyme, and red pepper flakes and cook one minute more.

Then add the cabbage, diced tomatoes, chicken stock and bay leaves.  Cook everything together over medium heat for 15-20 minutes.  Reduce the heat to medium-low, add the zucchini and beans and cook for another 15-20 minutes or until the cabbage is tender.  (I let mine simmer on low-low heat for a while longer until we were ready to eat.)

Meanwhile, you can make the pistou.  Measure all of the below ingredients directly into a food processor fitted with a metal blade (or a blender would work too.)

2 cups of fresh basil
1/2 cup of parmesan cheese (I used pecorino)  
3 tablespoons of olive oil
1 large clove of garlic
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 of a roma tomato, diced or a few of the diced tomatoes reserved from the soup

Pulse or blend until almost smooth (like a pesto).  Set aside.

Garnish each bowl of soup with a scant teaspoon of the pistou on the top (and a few of the crispy pancetta bits if you want to splurge a little.)  The smell of the garlic and the fresh basil wafts up at you as the pistou melts into the soup.  It really kicks what at first seems like a basic veggie soup up to another level.

I personally appreciate soup first and foremost as the perfect excuse for bread.  I made a delicious iteration of my Brown Butter Soda Bread from last year to accompany the soup.  I substituted fresh thyme for the rosemary and 1/2 cup of grated pecorino romano cheese for the black pepper.  I also used plain melted butter versus browned and dusted the tops of the dough with additional cheese after I brushed them with the egg wash. 

A big bowl of steamy soup and a warm slice of fresh bread is the perfect weeknight winter meal.  I froze two servings for a rainy day and we enthusiastically enjoyed left overs all week.