Poached Eggs in Minestrone Verde

Perfectly Poached Eggs in A Happy Thick Minestrone Verde

This past winter I engaged in a form of torture for thirty days.

I did it in the name of health and post-holiday cleansing and camaraderie.

Also, I hoped I would lose a few pounds.

I did not lose weight. I did not feel great. I actually got really sick.

Needless to say, I did not decide at the end of thirty days that I would continue to live a life without bread (or wine).

I know that lots of folks have real allergies to gluten, but I think I have the exact opposite.

I’m allergic to not eating bread.

I might be wrong, but I think my cravings for bread and beans and grains (all things that were eliminated from my life during #whole30) are my body begging for nutrition. They are different from my sugar cravings in that I really need them. I don’t just want to eat them. I want to bathe in them.

Henceforth, I will always have piles of various grains and beans in my cupboards.

However, there is one small practice in which I engaged throughout the month of torture that made it more bearable. One little beacon of light in my dark January eating days was this: perfectly poached eggs.

After I grew tired of eating eggs in all the other ways you can think of to eat them, I began to poach them in sauces. Deb at Smitten Kitchen suggests many delish ways of poaching eggs in various tomato concoctions, and they are all wonderful.

But I began to notice that at the end of cooking almost any soup or sauce, I could throw an egg in and let it poach.

And voila, added protein.

Recently, I made this Minestrone Verde from Theo Randall’s My Simple Italian and I threw in some eggs at the end. And now I want to eat this every night.

With bread and wine of course.

Poached Eggs in Minestrone Verde

olive oil

2 red onions

4 cloves garlic

2 sticks celery

2 medium carrots

8 ounces sliced mushrooms

2 cans chopped tomatoes

1 teaspoon thyme

1 teaspoon oregano

1 can borletti beans (or great northern beans or any white bean)

4 cups freshly chopped spinach

splash of red wine vinegar

4-5 eggs

salt and pepper to taste

Pour olive oil in a deep heavy-bottomed pot and throw in the onions, garlic, celery and carrots. Let them soften a bit before adding the mushrooms. Allow to cook about ten more minutes or until all the vegetables are cooked to your liking. Add tomatoes, herbs and beans. Let everything come to a simmer for a bit (15-20 minutes) and add the spinach and red wine vinegar. Salt and pepper to taste and just before serving, crack eggs separately into the sauce. Allow eggs to poach for 2-3 minutes. Serve immediately.