Beans and Greens Soup

Ingredients
1 cup Dutch Bullet beans
1 bunch curly endive, washed and cut into bite-sized pieces
3 tablespoons olive oil
4 cloves garlic, minced
1 bay leaf
3 cups stock (vegetable or chicken)
~ water
~ salt
~ pepper
~ Pecorino Romano (optional)

Steps

1. In a medium pot, add beans and enough cold water to cover beans with one inch of water. Soak beans overnight.
2. Drain beans, rinse and put back in pot. Add enough water to cover beans by one inch. Add bay leaf and place pot on medium high heat. When the water begins to boil, lower heat and simmer beans until tender. Drain, reserving 1 cup of liquid.
3. Heat olive oil in a large saucepan over medium high heat. Sauté briefly until garlic is fragrant. Add endive, sauté until greens wilt.
4. Add beans, cooking liquid and stock. Simmer for about 15 minutes. Add salt and pepper to taste. Serve with grated Pecorino (optional).

Tuscan Beans (Beans all’Uccelletto)

recipe by Kathryn LaSusa Yeomans

Beans are a wonderful source of inexpensive protein. The benefit of farmers market beans is that they are so much fresher than those you’d procure at the grocery store. You may find that the flavor and texture are quite different than what you’re used to, and that the cooking time is less, due to their freshness.

Limited on time? Cook a large amount of beans and freeze what you will not use right away, along with the cooking liquid, in food storage containers or in plastic bags in the freezer. Thaw containers to use as needed in any recipe that calls for canned or fresh beans. And use the cooking liquid for soups – it’s delicious!

Ingredients
2 cups dried beans (soaked in cold water several hours or overnight if desired)
5 tablespoons olive oil
3 garlic cloves, lightly crushed
7 fresh sage leaves
1 pound fresh tomatoes, peeled & seeded , or 1 pound of canned whole tomatoes, separated from the juice (break each tomato into 4 pieces with your fingers)
~salt and pepper

Steps

1. Pick over the beans, removing any stones or little clumps of earth, and then rinse the beans thoroughly. Soak them if desired. Drain the beans and place them in a pot. Add fresh cold water to cover by an inch. Bring to a boil, then lower the heat and simmer steadily but gently until tender but not mushy (start checking the beans after about 40 minutes). Turn off the heat and let the beans settle for 10 minutes. Stir in 1⁄2 tsp. salt and let the beans cool in the pot so that they absorb some of the cooking liquid.
2. To prepare the cooked beans, gently heat the oil in a skillet large enough to comfortably accommodate all of the beans. Add the garlic and cook for several minutes until the garlic has flavored the oil and the cloves have colored a light golden brown. Add the sage leaves to the oil. Let them sizzle for a few seconds, and then add the tomatoes. Be careful when adding the tomatoes to the hot oil, as they may splatter. Let the mixture cook for 2 minutes.
3. Drain the beans, reserving the bean cooking liquid. Add the drained beans to the pan, along with a cup of bean cooking liquid. Season with salt and pepper. Cook over medium heat for about 20 minutes, adding reserved bean water as the mixture thickens, so that you keep the beans creamy, almost a little soupy. Adjust seasonings and serve drizzled with good olive oil if desired and accompanied by a slice of rustic country bread.

Bean, Kale, and Polenta Soup

from Ayers Creek Farm newsletter (link):

There are various versions of this classic northern Italian soup, Infarinata, that bring dry beans, cornmeal, and kale together with a bit of pork. In a conversation over lunch, Linda Colwell reminded us that La Jota of Trieste is also a variation on this rustic soup, using sauerkraut instead of kale, and fragrant with cumin. Our friend and former neighbor, China Tresemer, helped us put together this recipe.

The recipe calls for unsmoked but cured pork: guanciale or pancetta, but in a pinch, a piece of salt pork will do. You can make this dish without the meat as well. Likewise, savoy cabbage, rocket or escarole can be used for the greens. For beans, we use Borlotto Lamon which has a deep nutty flavor and pleasant sweetness. The water the bean cooks in yields a delicious broth. There are several reasons why this variety is not more available commercially: Pole beans cost more to grow. The Lamon must be handpicked and has just three or four beans per pod compared to the usual five to seven. It also ripens late, splits in the rain, and is prone to viruses. Mere details, other than that it is perfect, the most glorious of the cranberry beans.

Serves 4

Ingredients
3 cups (525g) Borlotto Lamon dry beans
Water
4 ounces (100g) unsmoked but cured pork, minced
2 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil
1 carrot, minced
1 onion, minced
1 stalk celery, minced
2 cloves garlic, minced
3 sage leaves, fresh or dried, minced
1 cup canned crushed tomatoes, preferably your own
~ Salt and pepper
8 stalks of kale, collards, or lacinato kale, rib removed, minced
1 1/2 cups (210 g) medium-coarse flint cornmeal
~ good olive oil

Steps

1. Soak the dry beans in plenty of water overnight. Drain the beans, add fresh water to cover the beans by about 2 inches (5 cm), bring to a boil, then turn down the heat, and simmer until tender, 40 to 90 minutes.
2. In a soup pot, sauté the pork in the olive oil until it begins to turn golden. Add the minced carrot, onion, and celery, and sauté gently until the vegetables are soft. Add the garlic and the minced sage leaves. Add the tomatoes. Cook until the mixture thickens a bit, about 12 minutes. Add salt to taste. Chop the kale leaves and add to the pot. Add the beans and their liquor, topping the soup off with more water to create a good broth. Season with salt to taste.
3. Bring the soup to a gentle simmer. While the soup is simmering, trickle in the cornmeal, and stir occasionally until the polenta is tender, about 40 minutes. Season to taste with salt.
4. Serve the thick soup in shallow bowls with a good ribbon of the olive oil on top.