Ribollita!!

This was my big christmas cook and a continuation of the kale excitement.  Of course, I've been reading about kale and related things on wikipedia a lot lately, and I came across a famous stew of Tuscany that I had never heard of before -- ribollita.  It usually contains cavolo nero, so that is how I stumbled on it.  I had never heard of it before, but now I seem to hear of it all the time.  I just heard Rachel Ray mention it while discussing what to do with stale bread.  (yes.  so far, this means it is a stew containing cavolo nero and stale bread.  I'll get to the other ingredients soon.)

There seems to be a variety of ideas about what ribollita is.  There is agreement that ribollita means reboiled.  There is agreement that it is a leftover stew containing vegetables, beans, and old bread stew.  There is also agreement that you can put in whatever you want.  This is pretty cool given that the dish comes form a fancy food culture.

I'll just start with a picture of my pig pot because I like it so much.

Here are some early stages.

 

Just keep making regular bean and vegetable stew, and you get something like this:

Get out your old bread and make medium-small pieces:

 

Throw them into the stew, and stir.

 
Serve with Parmesan  (maybe.  people don't agree about adding parmesan)