I was recently at a restaurant in downtown Santa Ana where I foolishly let myself be talked into ordering the house’s kale salad. I’m usually a hard sell when it comes to kale, but I liked the young waitress’ enthusiasm as she assured me that no one had ever disliked the salad–even kale haters. You can guess how that turned out. <sigh> I’m ever the outlier.
I struggle to eat healthy leafy greens–particularly the dark and the bitter ones, but, in January, Neurology Magazine published a piece that caught my attention. The magazine cited a study that found that people who eat one serving of leafy greens each day (1/2 cup cooked or 1 cup raw) experience significantly slower cognitive decline as they age, picking up as much as an eleven year advantage over their peers who don’t eat greens.
There is a lot of other positive news out there about green leafy vegetables, too. A 2016 study in Australia showed that leafy greens promote digestive health. Other studies credit green leafy vegetables with improving the body’s ability to burn fat, improving cardiovascular health, regulating glucose, lowering cholesterol and triglycerides, lowering blood pressure and on and on. They even supply your body with a natural sunscreen.
Here is a great (and easy!) Provencal Greens soup recipe that will make eating your greens a piece of cake.
This recipe is adapted from one in Martha Rose Shulman’s cookbook, The Very Best of Recipes for Health. The book was published in 2010 but you can still get it on Amazon here. Schulman is a former NY Times food writer and the author of more than twenty-five books. She also has written for Bon Appetit, Food and Wine, Fine Cooking and Saveur. Preeminent food writer M.F.K. Fisher said of her, “Martha Rose Shulman has an innate sense for flavoring and timing. She knows how much to put in anything she does, and this ranges from cinnamon to common sense, all of it mixed up with human understanding of love and all that business.”
So…on this chilly late-March day, I’ve decided to use a bit of that common sense Fisher praises and put an array of dark leafy greens into the regular rotation of dishes on my table. Well…maybe not kale.
Save RecipeIngredients
- 2 T. extra-virgin olive oil
- 2 spring onions with medium to large bulbs or 2 leeks (sliced)
- 4 garlic cloves (sliced)
- Kosher salt
- 6 cups chopped greens (leaves only)--I used baby spinach but you could use chard or beet greens or a combination of greens
- 6 cups of vegetable broth or water
- Black pepper to taste
- 2 large eggs
- 4 thick slices of bread ( rubbed with a cut clove of garlic, toasted and cut into large cubes)
- Grated Parmesan for serving
Instructions
- Heat olive oil in a large soup pot and sauté the sliced onions (or leeks) for about five minutes until they soften. Stir the minced garlic and about 1/2 t. salt to the onions and cook until the garlic is fragrant (about 1 minute). Stir the greens into your pot and let them begin to wilt. Add 6 cups of vegetable broth to the pot and bring to a low boil. Reduce the heat, partially cover the pot and simmer your soup for 15-20 minutes. When your soup is ready, the greens will be tender and the broth will be sweet tasting. Add pepper and additional salt to taste.
- Break two eggs into a bowl and beat them. Whisk a ladle of hot (not boiling) broth (from the soup pot) into the eggs and whisk to temper your eggs. Remove the soup pot from the heat and whisk the tempered eggs into the soup. Return the soup to the heat (don't boil) and stir. The strings of egg in your soup will look a bit like an egg drop soup.
- Serve with croutons and a generous sprinkling of Parmesan.
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