Slow Cooker Ribollita- Food Network Magazine

The picture in this recipe looks soooo good and I love the fact that it uses my slow cooker. Seriously, click on the link below to see the picture and you'll be making this, too.   My time with my crock pot is almost over....  15 years and kicking for this amazing, $30 piece of equipment.  There's a crack in the crock (lol) that'll pop one of these days, causing me a huge mess and anguish but I just can't bear to replace it yet.  I've cooked hundreds and hundreds of meals in this thing and am now pretty convinced that its indestructible.  My next one will totally be another Rival. 

So, this is a somewhat embarrassing meal for me to blog about, but I'm going to go for it!  I've been making soups more often than normal these past few weeks.  Soups are one of those things that get easier and easier the more you make them.  I remember once, in my early twenties, having a really strong craving for homemade chicken noodle soup.  Maybe I was sick, nostalgic, who remembers.... but I decided to make some soup from scratch.  I roasted a chicken, pulled it apart, made the stock, made the soup.... 8 hours later I had a just-ok bowl of homemade soup to work with.   A decade later and I've learned to manage my time a little better and, thankfully, the taste as well.  What's funny about these soups is that I'm pretty much the only one who likes soup in the house.  John will try a little bit and Shawn will eat a bowl because he feels obligated.  I just take the rest for lunch or freeze for when one of us gets sick.  There is NOTHING like homemade soup when you're sick. 

I had the ingredients for this at hand, with some light variations, and decided to try it out.  On Friday night (yes, I stay home and prep veggies some Friday nights) I cut up 3 carrots and 3 stalks of celery.
 Then I sauteed up a few pieces of diced bacon, removed most of the grease, and sauteed the veggies a touch.  You don't have to sautee vegetables before putting them in the crockpot, but it really does improve the flavor a bit.  While everything sauteed, I rinsed some small dried white beans and picked out the broken and off color ones.  I combined the beans, the veggies, the bacon, some bagged cabbage, and a 1/4 cup of tomato paste; topped with water and turned it on.  Then I went to bed.

Note- my sense of smell is terrible.  My unprofessional diagnosis is that its part allergies and frequent sinus infections and partly because I smoked for so many years. 

I woke up on Saturday morning and asked Shawn if it smelled good.  He didn't smell anything.  Uh-oh.... I checked the crockpot and it was on low.  Then I realized..... I didn't plug it in.  Total rookie mistake!!  I was so annoyed with myself!!  I debated for a while on what to do next.  Part of me thought I should throw it away, part of me thought it would be ok to proceed.  So, I put it out to my friends at Chowhound.com.  Common consensus- Bacon is a smoked product that wouldn't spoil and I used water and not chicken stock.  Proceed.  I turned on the pot, rethought our lunch plans, and went on with my day. 

7 hours later, my beans were cooked and the dish was ready for the next step.  The recipe calls for stale bread, but I had half of a really good roll that had hardened over night.  I put that in the cooker and let it sit a while.  It took 2-3 times longer because of the crust and I needed to break it up after a while.  The bread disintegrated into the soup, thickening it up nicely.  Then I stirred in a 1/4 cup of parmesa cheese and some parsley.  I skipped the toasted bread step, and sauteed sliced garlic in oil, adding it to the soup before serving. 

The soup looked really, really good.  Thankfully, it tasted really really good, too!!  I liked the addition of the tomato paste.  It gave it a nice note of flavor and color without the acidity of actual tomatoes.  The cheese gets a little melty on your spoon as you eat it, which I enjoy.  I can imagine that if I had spooned the soup over toasted bread, as suggested, that the cheese would stick to the bread a bit.  I just am not a fan of wet bread. 

There's a bunch leftover, so I look forward to enjoying some soup throughout the week.  I'll give this a go, again.  Oh, and I'll always check the plug before going to bed (hangs head in culinary shame).

Slow Cooker Ribollita- Food Network Magazine
http://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/food-network-kitchens/slow-cooker-ribollita-recipe/index.html