Dating back to its peasant origins, there are many versions of this wonderful recipe, but the ingredients always found in Ribollita are stale Italian bread, cannellini beans and lots of marvelous vegetables, and some recipes call for the addition of sausage or prosciutto, but those are optional, of course. Since there is bread in the soup, it is very filling. If you go to Tuscany and try this delicious example of cooking gourmet Italian foods, you probably don’t want to order bread to go with it. You may get a few strange looks! Another traditional ingredient for this soup is cavolo nero, which translates to “black cabbage”, although it is really an extraordinarily deep, dark green. It is a close relative to kale, so kale can surely be substituted.

True Tuscan Ribollita actually takes THREE FULL DAYS ot make. On the first day, you make a huge pot of minestrone and eat it on that day. Refrigerate the leftovers overnight. The second day, the soup becomes even more enticing. You layer the remaining soup iin a baking dish with about a pound of stale crusty bread and top with thin slices of red onion. Now bake it in the oven and serve. Now, if there are any leftovers on the third and final day, reboil the soup, stirring often so that the break breaks up in the soup. This soup should be thick enough to eat with a FORK!

You now have made Ribollita and you have an economical, satisfying dish! Be sure to drizzle olive oil over each serving.
If you like to venture into the world of cooking gourmet Italian foods, you might want to search the different recipes for this classic, comforting Tuscan soup.

Watch Ribollita being made right here!

Mangia Bene!

Let’s think about what we hear these days about healthy eating. We hear about Omega-3 having numerous benefits for the human body. These little gems are primarily found in oily fish. Italians eat large amounts of sardines and anchovies which have wonderful Omega-3 content. We are told to eat plenty of fruit and vegetables. The Italian diet is loaded with these, too, in salads or cooked. Does any country have more ways to cook eggplant than Italy? Did you know that fruit is a basic component of almost every Italian meal – especially in their wonderful desserts.

You’ve surely heard of all of the health benefits of garlic and olive oil. Hello, Gourmet Italian food!!! Just loaded with both. Red wine has suddenly hit the list as being beneficial in small quantities. Chianti, anyone? But what about the pasta? Pasta bad! Dieticians tell us that a decent diet requires carbohydrates – and one can now buy low-carb pasta in just about any grocery store!

But what about that wonderful bread! Did you know that Italian bread has a significantly lower salt count then American bread? Also, their breads, such as ciabatta and foccaccia, are quite dense, giving more of a feeling of fullness so one eats less of it. And guess what they eat with their bread in Italy? Not butter! They soak it in the magical olive oil!

For years there has been lots of buzz and books about the Mediterranean Diet. And Italy is where? That’s right! Right smack dab in the middle of the Mediterranean Sea! So if you love gourmet Italian food, go ahead and indulge once in a while and take advantage this marvelous gourmet Italian food without feeling guilty about it! Mangia Bene!