Tomato Soup Florentine

Tomato Soup Florentine for dinner. (Anything with spinach in it can be called Florentine ever since Catherine de Medici fell in love with the little green leaves. She was born in Florence and as queen of France back then possessed a certain cache in the marketing of spinach in relation to her home town.)

MAKING SOUP

A) The Broth:

I'm a great fan of the bouillon and this starts with chicken and vegetable cubes, some kosher salt, fresh ground black pepper and oregano. Drizzle the liquid with a liberal amount of olive oil. I make my soup in a large soup pot and so I tend to make a lot and then freeze portions for later consumption. So my proportions are guess-timates based on starting with about a gallon of water.

1) 2 chicken bouillons
2) 2 vegetable bouillons
3) 8 cranks of black pepper from a pepper mill
4) 1 tsp kosher salt
5) 1/2 teaspoon dried oregano
6) 1 tbsp olive oil

B) The Ingredients:

Set to medium high heating and add:

7) 1 large yellow onion, chopped
8) 2 medium sized cloves of garlic, sliced into thin discs
9) the remnants of a celery stalk (4 spears and the heart), chopped
10) 1 carrot, sliced
11) 1 zucchini, sliced
12) 8 medium sized tomatoes with the seeds and "jelly" removed, chopped
13) 1 small bag of baby spinach
14) 1 package of an orzo-like pasta from Molina's of Mexico called pumpkin seeds
15) The juice of one lemon

Bring the temperature up if necessary to just a boil and then down to a simmer with regular stirring until the pasta is done and the zucchini translucent.

The only thing missing...a baguette and some brie.

NOTES:

Step 14 The pumpkin seed pasta could be replaced by orzo pasta, or rice, or even Cannellini Beans. Additionally, the use of Italian sausage if you want a meat ingredient would be very copacetic.