With the weather being so cold, I am taking a much-needed break from photographing sessions here in Lake Keowee and instead working on all of the bookwork, filing, and tax preparation that I put off during the crazy-busy autumn. That means I am spending lots of time in my home office, but I also have more time to actually COOK our meals. If you love bean soup, make this today. Got the recipe from the W-S web site. I made my own chicken stock for it by buying a readymade rotisserie chicken, removing all of the meat (and there was enough for two recipes for dinner right there), then throwing the carcass covered with water into a crockpot and cooking on low all night. Easy and delicious,  and really cost effective (soup stock in grocery stores is NOT cheap!).

Ingredients for White Bean Soup:

1/4 c olive oil

1/4 c chopped pancetta (or 1 lb bacon, which is what I used because there is no prayer of getting pancetta where I live)

1/2 yellow onion, chopped

1 carrot, peeled & chopped

1 celery stalk, chopped

4 garlic cloves, minced

(3) 15 oz ) cans cannellini beans, drained

5 cups chicken broth

3/4 tsp freshly chopped thyme

1/2 c grated parmigiano-reggiano cheese

salt & pepper to taste

DIRECTIONS:

In dutch oven, heat 2 T of olive oil. Add pancetta & cook until crisp, @5 min. Add onion, carrot, celery, and cook, stirring occasionally, until beginning to soften, @8 min.  Add garlic and cook another minute. Add beans, broth, thyme and bring to a simmer. Reduce heat to low, cover, and cook until vegetables are tender, @15 min.  Puree in blender until smooth. Stir in cheese and season with salt & pepper. Try not to eat the whole pot of soup (Jim and I, Allison and Josh polished it off at one sitting, with chicken and  roasted red pepper panninis).

This entry was posted on Tuesday, January 12th, 2010 at 12:10 pm and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.