Happy St. Patricks Day!

today has been super rainy and cold outside, the kind of day that you just want to curl up on the sofa with a book eat soup and drink tea. Lucky for us a friend had extra cabbage ( 3 heads to be exact) which meant soup on this cold day.
Now I did not use all three head of course, only half of one... and let me tell you this soup is so YUMMY! I love 101 cookbooks and they had a recipe for a Rustic Cabbage Soup.  I promise you are going to love it !


Rustic Cabbage Soup:

1 tablespoon extra virgin olive oil
a big pinch of salt
1/2 pound potatoes, skin on, cut 1/4-inch pieces
4 cloves garlic, chopped
1/2 large yellow onion, thinly sliced
5 cups veggie stock
1 1/2 cups white beans, precooked or canned (drained & rinsed well)
1/2 medium cabbage, cored and sliced into 1/4-inch ribbons

more good-quality extra-virgin olive oil for drizzling
1/2 cup Parmesan cheese, freshly grated (optional, this part was not for me, I kept mine vegan)

Warm the olive oil in a large thick-bottomed pot over medium-high heat. Stir in the salt and potatoes. Cover and cook until they are a bit tender and starting to brown a bit, about 5 minutes - it's o.k. to uncover to stir a couple times. Stir in the garlic and onion and cook for another minute or two. Add the stock and the beans and bring the pot to a simmer. Stir in the cabbage and cook for a couple more minutes, until the cabbage softens up a bit. Now adjust the seasoning - getting the seasoning right is important or your soup will taste flat and uninteresting. Taste and add more salt if needed, the amount of salt you will need to add will depend on how salty your stock is (varying widely between brands, homemade, etc)...

Serves 4.