Along the Appian Way ~ Easy Italian Dinners and Soups!

The Appian Way... like good Italian cooking is an easy way, a frugal way.

Pastas with sauce... soups with bread and butter!

Most frugal dishes cooked the Italian way begin with a meat stock to which you can add tomato paste or heavy cream as a simple sauce. You can also prepare a great meat sauce starting with sauteing chopped onion and garlic in olive oil then adding any meat and crushed tomatoes and heavy cream, you like.

As for soups, they start the same way with either pre-made store bought stock or a fresh homemade meat stock (boil beef/chicken in salted water)... add fresh diced (or canned) tomatoes, fresh or frozen vegetables but take care to leave out pasta/rice which can be added to each bowl or to a separate soup tureen to set on the table.

You can get frugally creative when it comes to soup using stock using just about any kind of left over and or adding meatballs, sausage and or seafood such as shrimp. What is important with any soup or sauce is that you start with a basic meat or vegetable stock. By keeping stock in the pantry or fridge you can create or change up any soup or sauce and either can morph into another kind of soup or sauce.

Remember, keep out  pasta/rice and strain off veggies when you want to recreate a soup or sauce. For instance, a chicken stock can become many different kinds of soup even tomato by the end of the week or a good Minestrone; a soup that can have a number of left overs - meat/veggies and pasta goodies. Always be a good judge of food shelf/fridge life... the nose knows!


~ Tutti a Tavola!

The Appian Way was one of the earliest and strategically most important Roman roads of the ancient republic connecting Rome and Brindisi.


*Check Brainy Archives for recipes!