Green Soup

Ingredients

• 1 bunch chard or spinach
• 1 bunch kale
• 2 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil, plus more for garnish
• 1 large yellow onion, chopped
• 1 1/4 teaspoons sea salt, more to taste
• 2 garlic cloves, chopped
• 3 tablespoons Arborio rice
• 3 cups water
• 3 cups vegetable broth, homemade or canned
• 4 to 5 green onions, sliced
• 1/2 cup chopped fresh cilantro
• Pinch of cayenne
• 2 tablespoons fresh lemon juice, plus more to taste
• Freshly ground black pepper
• Crumbled fresh white cheese and homemade croutons, for garnish, optional

Directions

1. Rinse the greens well, remove the tough stems from the kale, and cut the leaves into strips. Now you are going to brown the onion in a rice cooker, which has 2 moods: hot on Cook and gentle on Keep Warm. Pour 2 tablespoons olive oil into the Pot, plug in the Pot, and turn it to Cook. Add the chopped onion with a big pinch of salt, then cover. About every 5 minutes, open the lid, stir the onion, and cover it again, until the Pot drops itself to Keep Warm.
2. This is the part where you boss the Pot around a little. Switch it back to Cook. It should hold there for about 3 minutes at a time, and you can do that several times. When the Pot refuses to return to Cook, let it sit a few minutes at Keep Warm. Then set it to Cook again, add the chopped garlic, and keep going until the onion is soft and browned. Expect the whole thing to take about 40 minutes. It will not be the perfectly even caramelizing you get from a pan over carefully tended medium low heat, but it will do the job nicely.
3. Add the rice to the onion and garlic in the Pot. Pour in the water and vegetable broth, then add a teaspoon of sea salt. Cover and set the Pot to Cook. Once the liquid comes to a simmer, which should be within about 5 minutes, add the prepared greens, green onions, and cilantro. The pile may look wildly too large, but it is not. Press the greens down gently with a spoon until the lid fits back on, then cook for half an hour.
4. Unplug the Pot, then carefully purée the soup with an immersion blender. If you are using a regular blender instead, let the soup cool a little, blend it in batches, and return it to the Pot.
5. Stir in the cayenne and lemon juice, then grind in some black pepper. Taste the soup and adjust it with more lemon juice, salt by the pinch, or a little extra pepper, until it lands where you want it.