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Delicious Easy Slow Cooker Italian Puntarelle and Lentil Soup
Delicious Easy Slow Cooker Italian Puntarelle and Lentil Soup
Ciao Bellas, I was defeated by a Puntarelle.
Puntarelle is not a football move, or a ballet…..it’s not a story of a girl who wants to go to the ball and loses a glass slipper… it’s a vegetable.
I found it at the Farmer’s Market in Los Angeles in January.
It’s related to chicory. It’s big and interesting looking.
It’s so interesting I can’t even find a photo to share with you. Please Google Puntarelle for image references.
My defeat:
I am an accomplished chef and even wrote the book on salads, and Puntarelle kicked my ass.
I was told that Puntarelle required some ice baths and other involved prep, but to avoid that you could bake it with salt, pepper and olive oil. Every recipe online involved anchovy, and while I’m Italian, I’m also vegan so because of the anchovy recipes I figured it needed extra salt.
Also, I don’t cook with oil. But hey, I love salt.
So I made an oil free Italian dressing with extra salt, oregano and red wine vinegar, and baked the Puntarelle with the dressing.
Then I cut it up small for a salad. I cut up fresh carrots, daikon and cucumbers to accompany it.
It was NOT GREAT. I ate half and the other half is in the compost. It was too salty.
Bahhhhhhh…
I had to wrestle this thing one more time. I had one more Puntarelle in my refrigerator. I considered gifting it.
No way, I would NOT be defeated. This time I’d shred it.
Puntarelle is related to chicory and escarole. I love lentils and escarole so I’d try that approach, though I could find NO RECIPES on the internet for anything like that so I wanted to make sure that I shared this with you.
Please read entire recipe before starting. Please always use organic ingredients when possible.
THIS SOUP IS SOOOO GOOD. This recipe is VEGAN!
Into the slow cooker (my cooker is 7 quart):
Three 1 quart (32 ounces each) cartons of vegan veggie broth (Trader Joes)
1 Puntarelle, washed and shredded (sliced thin) in the food processor-this yields a lot of greens
~20 cloves of garlic, varying sizes (2-3 inner bags of cheaty pre-peeled garlic from Trader Joes)
3 bay leaves
2 Tbsp of Celtic Sea Salt
1 bag of brown or green lentils, rinsed (Trader Joes)
Slow Cooked on low until the house smelled like heaven and the lentils were done (about 6 hours for a 7 quart slow cooker)
This approach is SO EASY and is SO GREAT.
Buon appetito!
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Great idea for my puntarelle, they were slow to produce the stems that you’re supposed to use, but are doing fine now and some even flowered. I was having trouble finding used for it though. Did the skier thin and submerge in ice water thing. Okay for a salad, but wanted something different. Cheers