la vita della casalinga: parte seconda

Yesterday I posted the ribollita recipe thinking that the poor Newyorkesi would be suffering even more in the cold than we were here in Rome. I was very upset to hear my friends are wandering around in their shirt sleeves in 70 degree weather while we are freezing over here with our citrus trees next to the Mediterranean Sea!

If any of you were sweating in your kitchen over a pot of hot soup last night rather than grilling, you can now begin to truly reap the rewards. Like most things, soup tastes so much better after a day in the fridge. For tonight, this is all you need:

bread (hopefully bought and sliced up yesterday and now a bit stale)

some very thinly sliced red onion

a pot of left over minestrone

Provided you have a bread knife, this won't take too much time and will leave you free for other housewifely pursuits, like museums visits, spa appointments and shopping. Unfortunately, like everything else, cutting up bread is a labor intensive process here since we don't have an actual bread knife. Our apartment came equipped with a huge knife with a blade of equal dullness to the safety scissors you used in kindergarten which simply creased, rather than cut, your paper. It squashed everything we tried to cut: bread, tomatos, even pancetta. They say dull knives are more dangerous than sharp ones. I can see why since the knife slipped off a carrot yesterday striking my finger. The blade, if you can call it that, pinched my fingertip against the cutting board resulting in more of a bruise than anything else. My knife is now so dull it has surpassed the dullness of danger it seems. The easiest solution to this problem seemed to buy a new knife. I wouldn't have even known where to go to get a knife sharpened in New York after living there six years. Little did I know that I was often passing by just such a place on a regular basis. I had been wondering what an excercise bike was doing in the street, but yesterday as I passed by I saw someone come out of one of the shops and mount the bike. I even stopped to see this guy begin his "work out." It turns out it was a grindstone powered by the pedals.

Anyway, before I had been enlightened to the bicycle method of knife sharpening, I made a purchase from the 99 cents store (which in actuality, I reminded myself, is more like a buck fifty store with the exchange rate as it is) that ranks right up there with the caffettiera I bought at "Top Sound." I found a knife that had the word "tomato" cut out of the blade. For some reason, the obviousness of the knife's purpose escaped me. I thought it would work a bit better on bread because it is serrated, but as you might imagine, the cut-outs in no way add to the strength of the steel which merely wobbles back and forth like a plastic knife on the crust and really, on almost anything BUT a tomato. My husband has started tearing a chunk off of the bread when he wants some which leaves me with a loaf that looks like it has been gnawed on. This means at least one more cut is necessary to even out the surface before you even begin slicing! Even with these hurddles to surmount, I still had plenty of time to go shopping today and have dinner on the table in time.

Layer your thinly sliced bread on the bottom of the pan and drizzle with olive oil. Add a few of the onions and then pour some of the soup over top of it. Continue layering up the bread, olive oil, onions and soup. (I only got two layers which seemed to be plenty) Top it off with a little more soup. Make sure there is some room at the top because it expands as it cooks. It is good to leave a little soup in the pot for tomorrow, by the way. Put your casserole, covered, in the oven at 350 degrees or so for about 20 minutes. Uncover the casserole and let it brown up a little on the top - about another 30 minutes. Serve drizzled with olive oil and if you like, a little parmesan. Buon Ap!