New Recipe of the Week

Tuscan Bean Soup 

with Sage and Seared Mushrooms 

In order to stay true to my New Year's resolution I felt it was necessary to do a truly new recipe before this week's end. The frittata didn't really count, since I had made the ingredients scrambled style before.
This beauty is a recipe from "The Moosewood Restaurant" cookbook, and a new one for me. 

It is a hearty vegetarian soup that leaves even the biggest meat eaters satisfied...or at least last night it did. 
The sage adds the special 'wow' in this dish, but I can see subbing thyme or rosemary if I had it on hand. Also, I love the suggestion of adding cooked grains like wheat-berries, or greens like escarole to add texture and dimension. 
Slurp. 

Oh...and it wasn't part of the recipe, but I shaved and served grana padana cheese with the soup. Cheese makes everything better.

Ingredients:

2 cups diced onions

1 cup peeled and diced carrots

4 garlic cloves, minced or pressed

1 tablespoon of olive oil

15 large fresh sage leaves

6 cups cooked pinto, Roman, or small red or white beans (3 16-oz cans, undrained)

4 cups vegetable stock

salt/pepper to taste

Optional: Mushrooms

Directions:

In a soup pot, saute the onions, carrots, and garlic in olive oil on medium - low heat until the onions are translucent and the carrots are tender, about ten minutes. Stack the sage leaves and cut them crosswise into strips. Stir the sage into the vegetables. Add the beans and stock. Cook on medium until the soup is simmering, about 5-10 minutes.

Carefully ladle about 3 cups of the soup into a blender and puree until smooth. Stir the puree back into the soup pot. If you wish, add more stock for a less thick consistency. Salt and Pepper to taste.

Optional: Sear porto mushrooms in a pan and top on soup.

Other: Drizzle with olive oil; top with croutons. Stir in cooked grains such as wheatberries, spelt or cooked greens like escarole or mustard greens.
*Although the recipe doesn't suggest this, I cooked and added small round noodles to this dish the second time around, and it worked well; even my 3 year old son was sold.

Enjoy!