Category Archives: spinach

Hearty Sausage and Lentil Soup

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In the aftermath of our epic move (the last few items, sofa included, were schlepped during the only snowstorm before Halloween in recent memory), I wanted nothing more than some easy, delicious, and hearty. I had plenty of lentils and rice, a little bit of duck stock, and with Fairway down the street to pick up a little Italian sausage, we ate healthily and heartily for days.

Hearty Lentil and Sausage Soup

  • 1 lb. sweet Italian sausage
, casing removed
  • Extra-virgin olive oil

  • 2 carrots, chopped
  • 1 large yellow onion, chopped

  • 1 tsp. cumin
  • 1⁄2 tsp. dried thyme

  • 1 tsp. Aleppo pepper
  • 6 cups broth
  • 
1 cup long-grain brown rice, rinsed

  • 3⁄4 cup brown lentils, rinsed

  • Kosher salt and freshly ground black pepper

  • 1 package frozen spinach, thawed

Remove sausage from its casings. Heat oil in a 5-quart pot over medium-high heat; add sausage and cook, stirring and breaking it up into small pieces, until browned, about 6 minutes. Using a slotted spoon, transfer sausage to a plate.

Add carrots and onions, along with spices. Cook, stirring, until lightly browned, 10–15 minutes. Add reserved sausage, chicken broth, rice, and lentils and season with salt and pepper to taste.

Bring to a boil, lower the heat to medium-low, and cook, partially covered, stirring occasionally, until rice and lentils are soft, about 45 minutes. Stir in spinach and cook about 1 minute.

Recipe adapted from SAVEUR.com

a trastevere favorite “frittata di spinaci,” new york style

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So it appears as though I’ve been on sabbatical–from writing, not eating. Between working and traveling, I’ve had little time to sit down to write an entire blog. In fact, I haven’t even had time to go to the grocery store, which is saying something as not only is it one of my favorite past-times but there is one directly under my house. Last night, the almost-empty fridge led me to scrounge around the reserves, and I ended up making a very Roman dish (the Romans are, after all, known for there use of gli scarti, leftovers or more specifically offal).

I pulled out the egg carton, with its blaring expiration date for the following day, and set out the three remaining eggs to bring them to room temp. Then, I looked in the freezer and pulled out the lone package of frozen spinach, left over from when Giorgio’s mom restocked our kitchen in August. After heating water in the steamer, I placed the green block in the pot to speed up the thawing process (I hate boiling vegetables when not making a broth, as the nutrients remain in the water). As the ice melted, I began to grate the little parmigiano that we had left on the rind and added a bit of pecorino romano.

In a pan, I sauteed a few shallots that were hanging around (I didn’t even have a real onion!) and a few cloves of garlic. I beat the three eggs in a bowl, added s&p, the cheeses, and the spinach, after dousing it in ice water and squeezing out the liquid. All of it went into the pan together, and since there weren’t enough eggs to make a real frittata, I ended up making more of a spinach scramble. I threw a few hamburger buns under the broiler as we set the table. We sat down at the table, and after pouring the last drops of a bottle of Picco del Sole Cannonau (a miracle of a $12 Sardinian red wine that goes with everything, from fish to pork to the night’s eggs), we dug in. The meal was short, but oh-so-sweet…sometimes, as they say in Italy, the simplest things are best.

Now, I just have to go restock.