Tuesday, October 12, 2010

Celebrate Columbus Day with Tuscan Bean Soup

Why not some Italian food? Columbus Day is as good an excuse as any. So:

Tuscan Bean Soup


6 cups chicken or vegetable stock (home made if you have it)
2 tablespoons olive oil
1 cup chopped onion
1 tablespoon garlic
1 bunch chard, stems cut into 1" pieces and leaves coarsely chopped, or coarsely chopped Tuscan kale (or really any "winter" green, like spinach, mustard, escarole)
4 tomatoes, chopped (or 1 pint home canned)
2 carrots, sliced
1 tablespoon chopped fresh parsley, or 1 teaspoon dried
1 teaspoon chopped fresh basil, if you can still get it. 1/2 tsp dried, otherwise.
1/4 cup orzo or broken spaghetti
2 cups cooked white beans, such as Cannellini beans (or one can drained)
salt and pepper to taste

Saute onion in olive oil until soft.  Add garlic and saute for another minute.  Add the stock, chard stems (if using), tomatoes, carrots, and bring to a boil.  Turn down the heat, and simmer for 10 minutes.  Bring to a boil again. Add the pasta, chard leaves, beans, parsley, basil, salt and pepper.  Bring to a boil again.  Turn down the heat and simmer for another 10 minutes, or until the pasta is cooked.


Pesto Foccacia

1 recipe foccacia dough from whatever bread machine cookbook you have
pesto (made with basil, fresh from the farm)

Roll dough into a circle.  Cover and let rise for 30 minutes.  Brush with pesto.  Bake at 375 for 20 minutes.

Friday, October 8, 2010

Summer is coming to an end: Black Bean Stew

Now that summer is coming to an end, we are using the last of the summer vegetables.

Tonight we had a black bean stew.  Here's what we did.

1. Soak black beans over night.
2. Drain beans, add more water to cover the beans by 2".  Bring to a boil, then let simmer 2 hours or until tender.
3. In an cast iron skillet, brown 1 pound of sausage.  Chop one large onion, and one green pepper and one red pepper, and 2 stalks of celery, and 2 garlic cloves. Drain the sausage if necessary, and add the onion and sausage, and saute them until tender.
4. Add 2 Tbs. chopped fresh parsley or 1 Tbs. dried, 1.5 Tbs. chopped fresh basil or 2 tsp. dried, 1 Tbs. chopped fresh oregano, or 1.5 tsp. dried.
5. Drain the beans and add them to the vegetables and sausage.

Serve over rice.

We harvested carrots this morning.  I selected some baby carrots, and cooked them and served them with butter and parsley.  Baby carrots from the farm are much different than the ones from the store.  The ones from the store are all the same size and shape.  The ones from the farm are of different sizes and shapes.  Some are twisted.  But the ones at dinner were fresh and delicious.