Cabbage Minestrone with Chickpeas

There you are, innocently going about your day and clicking on a link to my blog post, with no idea that your world is about to be TURNED UPSIDE DOWN because I have something RADICALLY DIFFERENT for you today. I present to you: our first ever Guest Blog Post!

Our inaugural guest blogger, Liz, has been a friend for a long time. She reminded me how long, and I am discreetly omitting that information here. I did, however, dig up a photo from Ye Olde Times. Liz is looking radiant, second from the right, and I'm strangely miniature in the middle. The man who would become Liz's husband, by the way, is the guy with the glasses next to me!

Please enjoy Liz's review of "Cabbage Minestrone with Chick Peas" (NYT Cooking; subscription required). Thank you, Liz!

In case Jennie’s wondering if anything she writes sticks [Editor’s note: heck yes I am!], I’ll have her know her unwavering dedication to reducing our impact on the planet via food choices follows me like an invisible puppy through the grocery store. Or maybe she’s the bluebird on my shoulder while I scroll. Whatever the metaphor, I’m inspired. The truth in my mind cuts me off every time I feel the urge to trot out an excuse, such as, with two kids not-yet-school-age I can’t stop to plan, let alone shop for and cook plant-based meals. Well, in fact I did, and here’s my review. 

I didn’t mean for it to be a meatless Monday—I’m not sure I’d even remember it was Monday except that my 4 ½ year-old relentlessly checks to see if the next day is a school day. Also, I knew it wasn’t Wednesday because Wednesday is St Patrick’s Day and I was trying fake the holiday on Monday so she wouldn’t feel obligated to wear green on the 17^th, which happens to be School Picture Day. (That backfired by the way; she was so enamored of the new green rainbow themed leggings and t-shirt I found at Lidl she’s declared she’ll wear the outfit all week.) Also, by the way, this recipe would easily work for Jennie’s Vegan Vednesday if you left out the Parmesan rind. But I love the idea of using an ingredient that would be thrown away otherwise. And isn’t it supposed to add umami flavor? I’m not sure it did because I didn’t cook a control batch, plus I added a bunch of grated Parmesan on top of my bowl.

 

The point is, it was easy to plan and make this soup. I had a purple cabbage to use, I had some dried chickpeas left over from a hummus experiment, and every thing else was a pantry staple (I had to use dried herbs instead of fresh but hoping to plant an herb garden next month.) I figured I’d call it rainbow soup to appeal to the preschooler (which it did) and her 1 ½ year old brother was very fond of the sweet broth and tomato chunks. The only thing that tripped it up as a successful recipe was the dried chickpeas. I soaked them practically 24 hrs, and cooked them for at least three hours but they were still slightly crunchy. Why not use a can of chickpeas and save the hassle? Or perhaps use a pressure cooker/insta pot? One other nagging detail: why add the garlic in two stages? Back when Cook’s Illustrated was still a published magazine, I appreciated the chefs explaining how a decision on technique was reached after multiple experiments. With no similar explanation from the NYT I compromised and added three of the four cloves at the beginning and waited to add the fourth halfway through as written, just in case the kids distracted me. (I did actually get a minute to do it.)

 

In the end I ran out of time. Gave the kids small bowls of soup with the chickpeas picked out, and took my own bowl to eat upstairs while I watched them in the bath. 

Now I’ve got a huge pot leftover that I’m fairly confident the family couldn’t finish in a week. Gift it to the vegetarian neighbors next door with the crunchy chickpea caveat? Nah, it’ll probably get interred in the freezer, not to see the light of day again until the next long power outage—which with today’s ever-increasing wild weather is probably right around the corner.