And this is how our second readers' recipe got mangled up in our kitchen of mischievous mayhem. The end result, however, was without doubt absolutely sensational. This recipe was sent over the big pond by the girls' German aunt, "Sister Tilla".
We plucked
a small handful of sage leaves off their stems and
tossed them into
2 liter of boiling vegetable broth together with
2 cans of white cannellini beans. We let them simmer for half an hour. (Here is where we deviated the most substantially. Since Sister Tilla used dried bean soaked over night and cooked for an entire hour.)
In the meantime we chopped up
2 bulbs of fennel,
half a big yellow onion,
6 cloves of garlic,
a small handful of sun dried tomatoes (
the kind without oil), and another
small handful of sage leaves.
After about 15 minutes of boiling beans, we started to gently saute the veggies in
olive oil, also for 15 minutes and then chucked them into the broth. After these first 30 minutes of cooking a five minute rhythm emerged.
We added the veggies and waited 5 minutes.
We added
6 sliced mild Italian sausages and waited 5 minutes.
We added
a quarter pound of torchiette pasta (aren't they gorgeous) and waited 5 minutes.
Then we cut up some
parsley and .... ate.
Thank you Tilla. It was really yuumylicious!
(We should share here the anecdote of Sister Tilla tracking across Hamburg to her favorite Italian grocer Andronaco Grande Mercato for the sole purpose of procuring a "fennel sausage". Which took her maybe 45 minutes one way using public transportation. Since we weren't allowed such culinary and traveling luxury, we jumped out of the car, passing an Earth Fare store, offering a wonderful butcher counter. There we were told that all their basic Italian sausages were made with fennel.)
