Soups and Stews

If you like cooking traditional recipes from time to time, nothing says nostalgia like "penny" soup. It's a classic vegetable soup in which the ingredients are sliced crosswise, creating thin disks that look like coins. That's where the "penny" in the name comes from. Beyond being nostalgic, this soup is loaded with nutritious, good for you vegetables in a simple but flavorful broth. Your kids will love it once you explain that all those good veggies are nature's coins. What could be more entertaining?

The idea here is to choose smaller, less mature vegetables, clean and slice them crosswise about a quarter of an inch thick. This way most of them will look like varying sized coins -- and fit on a spoon. They'll likely cook somewhat faster, too. Although you can remove the skins from the potatoes , they will retain more of their nutritional value and be more colorful if you leave the skins in place.

Penny Soup Recipe

Ingredients

8 red potatoes, golf ball sized 2 sweet potatoes, small 2 carrots 1 celery rib, sliced 1/8 inch or thinner 2 parsnips 2 zuccinni 2 tbsp. olive oil 2 leeks, cleaned and chopped (Leeks are typically sandy, so break them apart and wash each rib carefully.) 64 ounces (8 cups) chicken broth or vegetable stock 10 small mushrooms, halved 1 bay leaf 1/2 tsp. Worcestershire sauce 1/2 tsp. black pepper 1/2 tsp. marjoram

Directions

In a large pot or Dutch oven, heat oil and add all the vegetables except the mushrooms. Cook on medium heat until the zucchini is limp and the leeks are glassy, about 5 minutes. Add broth, mushrooms, bay leaf, Worcestershire sauce, black pepper and marjoram. Simmer for 25 minutes.

Recipe serves 8

Recommendations: For a more complex (adult) flavor, and a heartier meal overall, sprinkle grated parmesan cheese onto each prepared bowl of soup. Serve with Italian bread or crackers. Topping the soup with seasoned croutons and then the cheese is also a tasty option.

Note: This soup is light enough to serve as a first course with fish, beef, pork or fowl.

"Big serving" and "big soup" are literal English equivalents of the Italian word minestrone.

Specifically, the word functions as a masculine noun in its singular form. It is formed by adding the augmentative ending -one ("big, great, large") to the feminine noun minestra ("broth, soup"). It ultimately originates in the Latin present infinitive ministrare in the sense of "to attend, to wait upon" tables. It tends to translate loosely as "potage, vegetable soup" since it traditionally uses fresh or left-over vegetables.

The pronunciation will be "MEE-ne-STRO-ne" in Italian.