"Back to school?"

I wrote about the change in the air around September a few entries ago, and the more I think about it, the more I feel it. I was thinking about it again this weekend.

Guy goes to rehearsals on Monday night, starting in September. And when that happens, our whole eating pattern changes. We eat soup every Monday night, and where we used to eat fish on Monday night, it will now be on Tuesday night. All kind of odd, as "back to school" happens. So, this weekend, I had to get my mind back into the set of making soup.

If you look at some of the entries from the winter of 2007, you know I DO enjoy, in fact, I LOVE making soup. But you do have to get back into the swing of it. So on Friday, I was trying to think of what to serve for soup. And I happened to have some fresh canellini beans in the fridge. Let me e xplain.

When you go to the farmers' market, you will often find an ingredient that you did not plan to use, and that you may have some idea how to use. If that happens, buy the stuff, and figure out how to use it, later. You will. Because in some cases, you may not see it again. Franca, one of my favorite farmers, had some yellow beans that I passed over, because I do not like wax beans. Her mother, Jan, who works at the stand told me "they're fresh canellinis." Well, I had no idea how to use them, but hey, I was not passing up this chance. So they were in the fridge. And beans make a great soup.

What do go with them ? Going back to my very first entry, you see that I love the escarole that Nevia grows. She had it again. NOW we're talking. Beans and escarole are classic partners in soup. Greens and beans are. The wonderful Portuguese soup of white beans and kale is an example, and of course, my own beloved minestrone. French cooking has garbure, and you could go on , and on , and on. So we had two components. But what else?

Well, since I had already planned on a pizza of the the Matts and I had made, meat was already on the menu. So this was going to be a vegetarian soup. In the fridge were carrots, onions, and potatoes. BANG. If you have a few vegetables, you have soup. Here's mine.

Chop up two medium yellow onions. You don't have to be too precise about this, just get them cut up. Cut two large carrots into coins, but peel them first, please. Then, peel and dice about twice as much of potatoes as you have carrots. You'll also need about a cup and a half of fresh shell beans of some type, and also, enough greens, like escarole, or chard, or spinach, to fill eight cups or so. Thats not a lot of greens. They take up a fair volume.

Now, cook your beans first. They take the longest to cook, so put them in a pot of cold water, with a pinch or two of salt, and bring them to a simmer. Cook for maybe fifteen minutes.

Put them aside. Don't drain them (this is controversial. I'll explain below).

In a big soup pot, cover the bottom with olive oil, and add your onions, with a teaspoon of salt, Saute them until they become translucent, and then add your carrots. Stir them for a minute or two, and then add the potatoes. The potatoes will stick if you don't keep everything moving around, so keep on stirring, for maybe five minutes.

Now, take your beans, and their water, and pour that all into the pot. There are people who feel that the starch of beans, when dissolved into the water, causes gastric distress. I've never experienced it, and there's nutrition in that water, so I keep it. If you're concerned, drain the beans. Then also add a quart of chicken stock, and if you didn't add the bean water, about two cups of water. Bring everything to a boil, and then lower the heat and simmer for ten minutes.

After that time, start adding your greens, in big handfuls. The heat will wilt them right away, and when that happens, your soup is done.

When I make this soup, I add a chunk of parmesan rind when I add the beans. If you have it, use it, if you don't , don't worry. And if you're a pure vegetarian, you can feel fine about using vegetable stock, or just plain water. When you correct the seasonings, you may want to add more of whatever you like to a water based soup, though.

This made about twelve cups of soup. That's plenty to share with people. There are a lot of singers, and they're hungry after a rehearsal. Someone is gonna get lucky tomorrow. Aaron, it may just be you...