Lazy days

So Thursday is usually the kind of day I just want to sit back and relax and enjoy my dinner without standing on my feet for extended periods of time. Then again, I love myself a little too much to just go with fries or any other 'easy' meals. The solution: cooking in advance. Most stuff definitely tastes better if it's been prepared the day before. The flavours get time to mingle and it's easy enough to just reheat it. In most cases, the food tends to get a little dry though. To prevent this from happening, I usually add a drop of olive oil or butter {depends on what's being prepared}. You do not want to use too much since the food will get greasy and well, less tasty. {BTW, I almost never use a micro wave. Micro wave and I are not friends.}

My success recipe for the kind of situation I've described above is ribollita. It's an Italian vegetable stew and delicious if prepared well. You can serve it in combination with pretty much everything. I prefer just a little bread and parmezan cheese, but pasta is also good. I might just try it out with some gnocchi. Jummie!
So what you're going to need first and foremost are beans. I am personally a fan of fava beans, though I can imagine any Tuscan to immediately feel insulted by the mere suggestion of using it in this dish. The rule with Italians and beans usually is: the more colourful the bean, the better they like it. {over generalisation on my part, scusame!} I am usually lazy, so I'll just get myself a jar and use my biceps to open it - enough effort if it were up to me. Then I'll put the beans in salted boiling water together with a few leafs of laurel, a potato {love Eigenheimers!} and a tomato. You have to make sure the potato is really mushy {takes about 20-25 minutes} before you take the tomato, potato, and laurel leafs out and throw them away. Yeah, no more need for them. You keep the beans, and about 20 cl of the bouillon. While your tomato, potato and laurel leafs have been so gently cooking with your (fava) beans you prepare a so-called soffrito.
A soffrito is the base of, well, all Italian food, but in particular for tomato based sauces. You heat some olive oil {not the premium quality one, just keep it behind for salads please!}, and then add chopped garlic, chopped onions, chopped celery or celeriac, and chopped carrots. Of course, in the South of Italy, they do it very differently, and insist it's the only possible way to do it.
When the veggies in the pan have softened you add some canned tomatoes and let it simmer for a couple of minutes. It's around this time that I get impatient and throw my beans and bouillon in the pan. At this point, you're supposed to add bread {not too fresh} and cavalo nero.
So far, however, I've had absolutely NO luck finding cavalo nero. I live near five supermarkets, a market, and about three greengrocers. No cavalo nero. I know exactly what I am talking about, but my greengrocers seems to have no clue. Too bad. The only solution for now is to do without this specific kind of cabbage and just get on with it.
I'll let the stew cook for about 30-40 minutes and then just put it aside to cool down. I've even been known to just leave it in the pan on the furnace overnight because I don't feel like scraping it out into some bowl to put it in the fridge. The next day I'll just add some salt and pepper, olive oil and reheat it.
Usually I just throw it all into a deep bowl, put lots of parmezan cheese on it and make myself comfortable on the couch. Nothing's better, I swear!

For those of you who wish to start cooking right now, here's the ingredient list:

300-400 gr. of beans
laurel
1 tomato
1 potato {I prefer Eigenheimer, but that's just me}
1 or 2 red onions
1 carrot
some celery or celeriac {it should be in ratio with the onions and carrots}
3 garlic {come on, be brave!}
olive oil
1 can of canned tomatoes
300-400 gr. of cavalo nero {if you can find it, good luck!}
white bread
salt & pepper

Enjoy!