March 21, 2011

Cold weather makes me want a hot bowl of tomato soup. But sometimes I want something a little different. I saw a recipe a while back — I don’t remember in what magazine — for a tomato and artichoke soup and thought it sounded interesting. So I trotted off to the kitchen to play. I came up with a version that’s simple to make but gives you something a little more interesting than your basic bowl of red stuff.

Here’s what you’ll need for Tomato Artichoke Soup with Pesto Garnish:

1 large can crushed tomatoes (salt free if available)
1 small can whole fire roasted tomatoes (crush or snip them into pieces with kitchen scissors)
2 jars fire roasted marinated artichoke hearts
1 large roasted bell pepper (either from a jar or done yourself), peeled and seeded*
Grated zest and juice of one good sized lemon, Meyer variety if available
Salt and pepper to taste
Water or broth to thin out soup if desired
A good handful of pine nuts, toasted
A half cup of grated Parmesan

Take one and a half of the jars of artichoke hearts and heat them in a sauce pan. When heated through, add both cans of tomatoes, the red pepper (roughly chopped), and the lemon juice. When hot go at it with a stick blender, or remove it to a blender or food processor. Taste it and add salt and pepper to taste. If it’s really thick, add water, vegetable or chicken broth to thin it out as much as you like.

Take the remaining artichoke hearts, the pine nuts and Parmesan and put in that cute little mini food processor you bought. You did buy one, right? If not, chop everything really fine and remind yourself to go get that mini chopper tomorrow.  Stir in the lemon zest. This is your pesto garnish.

Serve the soup with a dollop of the pesto on top. When I have leftovers of both that I don’t plan on eating the next day, I combine them and go at it with the stick blender again. If you feel decadent, you can add in some cream instead of water or broth to thin it out.

Very yummy!

* To do this yourself, put a whole big pepper in a hot oven, turning every few minutes until blackened and blistered. Put pepper in a paper bag. After 10-15 minutes, the skin should be easy to peel off. Split it open and remove core and seeds. The easier way: buy a jar of roasted red peppers.

January 24, 2011

I love cassoulet, a French stew that traditionally includes beans, sausage, chicken or duck and pork. But the traditional variety includes ingredients I wouldn’t use in everyday cooking (like duck and other fatty cuts of meat) and can take a long time to make — days for some recipes. I saw one recipe on line which talks about an “easy” version in 10 steps. No thanks. I don’t have time for that.

My easy version includes the warmth and flavors of the original and the ease of either a slow cooker or a one-pot meal that can be ready to eat in less than an hour. One caveat: this dish is better on the second day. It freezes well, so make extra. The quantities I include here made about 10 hearty servings. Just add some crusty bread. You don’t even need salad because there are so many veggie servings in each bowl.

If you are making this in a slow cooker, just put all the ingredients in, give it a stir and cook on low for about 6 hours. If you’re doing it in a pot, you want to brown any raw sausage first, then add the rest of the ingredients, scraping the bottom of the pot well.

Here’s what I put in my recipe:
* one package of boneless skinless chicken thighs (I put them in whole but you can roughly chop or else shred it after the meal is cooked; you can use boneless skinless breasts, too, but they won’t have as much flavor)
* a package of andouille sausage (I diced it);
* three parsnips, four carrots, two red potatoes, and an onion, all chopped;
* a can of tomatoes (whole; I crushed them, but you could use crushed or diced if you want);
* a can of white beans, including the “bean juice”;
* a little chicken broth (about a cup);
* a sprig of oregano (fresh) and/or a bay leaf.

If you aren’t using a slow cooker, use a large heavy pot. Brown the sausage if it’s uncooked, then add the rest of the ingredients, stir and bring to a boil. Then turn it down very low and let it cook for about 45 minutes.

Notice I didn’t include salt: most sausages have ample salt and other flavors. When it’s done, taste the stew and adjust the seasonings. Add salt, cayenne, or black pepper as you wish.

Just before you serve, add some chopped fresh parsley and about three cups of shredded kale. Stir well, let it sit for about five minutes and then serve. You can add some grated hard cheese on top (Parmesan, Asiago), or a spoon of sour cream or creme freche.

Very very tasty.

May 28, 2010

I found this recipe a couple years ago in Cooking Light and have made it regularly ever since. I don’t always make it the same way: I’ve used parsley rather than cilantro; forgotten the cilantro; used wine to deglaze the pan rather than chicken broth; added celery; had no turmeric and used curry powder instead (which was surprisingly successful. Ginger and cinnamon go well with curry, and turmeric is a huge component of curry powder). We like to serve it over couscous (whole wheat, organic biensur), or rice in a pinch. But our little guy doesn’t like either, so we add rough chopped potatoes when the chicken is returned to the pan.

It’s a more involved recipe than the chicken for company I did in the last post, so read this through a couple times and make sure you have everything ready before you begin. The dish freezes well (although potatoes, if used, will have a mushy consistency — it’s better to freeze everything but the spuds if you have cooked it with them; you can cook some more when you are ready to eat what you froze), and it looks pretty on a platter, as you can see below.

I’ve talked before about chicken thighs as a better tasting alternative to boneless skinless breasts. I have made this with the latter, but it just tastes better with the boneless skinless thighs. Here’s how I make a recipe that feeds the three of us without leftovers.

Take a package of at least six — and better eight — boneless skinless chicken thighs. Rinse, pat dry and put in a dish with a couple tablespoons of lemon juice. If you are using fresh lemons you’ll need about two. Wash them first and use a zester to take the rind off of them and put it aside. You’ll need it later. Put the chicken in the fridge for about a half-hour, flipping the chicken around about half way through that time.

Meanwhile, chop a small to medium sized onion. You want the pieces to be no more than a half inch square. If using, finely mince a clove of garlic. Grate about a tablespoon of fresh ginger. You can use a teaspoon of dried, but it’s not the same flavor. Dried ginger has been cooked and has less brightness to it. Chop about a dozen green olives (roughly choped). If you are using bottled lemon juice, you still need lemon rind, in which case, why are you using bottled juice? So use your zester for the rind. If you have only bottled lemon juice and no lemons, you can do this without the rind. Put all these pre-chopped things aside.

In a dish, take a couple tablespoons of flour, a dash or two of cayenne pepper, a good teaspoon of turmeric, about half a teaspoon of salt, and a few grinds of black pepper. Mix these items well. Heat a heavy skillet over medium-high heat. If it’s a non stick skillet, add about a teaspoon of oil; in a cast iron or regular skillet, make it about a tablespoon.

Take the chicken thighs and dredge each one on both sides through the flour mixture.

Alternative to doing them individually: put the flour mixture in a zip top bag and add in all the thighs and shake it up well until they are coated well. Whichever way, add the thighs to the hot pan. Cook about three minutes on each side over medium-high heat and remove from the pan to a dish; put it aside.

Add the ginger, garlic and onions to the pan and stir for a couple minutes until the onions are starting to get translucent. Add about half a cup of chicken broth to the pan and scrape up all the bits stuck on the bottom. You may want to add a little more broth if it seems to be thickening a lot. Add the olives and lemon zest to the pan, a couple of chopped potatoes if you have a kid who won’t eat couscous, and either a half teaspoon of cinnamon or a whole cinnamon stick (which you’ll remove at the end). Add the chicken back to the pan along with any juices on the plate. Reduce the heat to medium or medium low and cover. Check it every 15 minutes or so and make sure that there is still liquid in the pan. It only takes about a half hour to finish up, but you can actually leave it on simmer for quite a while.

This is what it looks like when it’s done:

Put it on a platter, either by itself or over rice or couscous — be sure to pour all the sauce over it. Add the cilantro on top. Dig in. It’s realy quite good.

Here’s a last warning:

Turmeric is still used as a vegetable dye. It will stain your clothing yellow. It will stain your countertops yellow. Wipe up splatters quickly; use a paste of baking soda and water to clean counters; pray over any white clothing you get the stuff on. Or use bleach. Or a dry cleaner. Did I mention the stuff stains? Seriously: worse than beet juice or carrot juice.

Eat up, Mia!

March 14, 2010

Mia, dearest, I never want you to call me again, ask what to make for a dinner party, and then inform me afterward that you just ordered a pizza instead. So here is a lovely dish that takes just a few ingredients that you should have in  your pantry anyway (go look at the first posts about what you should have on hand for cooking in a pinch); doesn’t take a lot of your time; is hard to screw up; looks beautiful; tastes great; and makes wonderful leftovers.

See this picture? It’s all you need, plus some chicken, to make it.

For four to six people (depending on how much they eat) you need four to six boneless skinless chicken breasts and about four or six boneless skinless chicken thighs. You could use bone in and with skin, but the skin doesn’t crisp. The only issue with using all breasts, particularly if it’s without bone and skin, is that you have to be very careful about over-cooking.

Slice up a lemon, take the seeds out and put it in the bottom of a glass casserole dish. If you have a nice Le Cruset casserole with a lid, it can go from oven to table, like the picture below. Put the chicken on top of that. In a bowl, mix two jars of marinated roasted artichoke hearts, about a cup of sliced crimini mushrooms, a cup of good white wine, a cup of low-sodium chicken stock, the juice of two lemons, about a half teaspoon of salt and some grinds of black pepper. Mix this all together and dump it over the chicken. The chicken should be mostly covered with the stuff from the bowl. If it isn’t, add some more wine and/or stock. Dot the whole thing with a couple tablespoons of butter. Cover with foil or with the lid of the casserole (if there is one).

You can either put it in the oven — 350 degrees for 60-90 minutes, until the chicken breasts are 160 degrees (check after an hour); then take it out and let it sit for about 10 minutes so the chicken can finish cooking and rest to redistribute the juices — or stick it in the fridge overnight and cook it the next day.

Serve it in the dish you cooked it in – it will look soupier this way, as above — or plate it, spooning the chunky stuff over the chicken and leaving the bulk of the juices behind. It’s great over rice, or orzo if you have a child who doesn’t eat rice.

Take any leftover juices and put them in a bowl in the fridge. When they’ve solidified, take the fat off the top. You can use what’s left as the basis of a great lemony chicken and artichoke soup — chop up the rest of the chicken and whatever veggies are left, add it to the defatted contents of the bowl, and thin it out with chicken broth (homemade or not). Add salt and pepper to taste and you have another meal. With salad and bread, even this is company-appropriate.

Enjoy!

* Unless the company is a pack of children or the friends who helped you move or paint your living room.

January 24, 2010

There are days when a bowl of chili or a steaming plate of spaghetti sounds nice, but the chopping involved doesn’t. Here’s a secret: the start of both a nice red sauce and a good bowl of chili are remarkably similar. You can do a whole bunch of chopping on a single day and cook up enough of two different dishes to eat a couple times during the week and stow some in the freezer for another week. The following amounts will make about six to eight servings of each chili and spaghetti sauce, depending on who you are feeding and how much they eat.

Chop 1 large onion, two to three large peeled carrots, and about half a bunch of celery (including the leaves). You should end up with about a cup and a half to two cups of each vegetable. The pieces of each vegetable should be of a similar size. If you like garlic, mince two to three large cloves of garlic.

In a large dutch oven or big pot, heat a couple tablespoons of canola oil on medium-high heat until it shimmers. Add the garlic and give it a quick stir — no more than about 30 seconds — then add in the onions and cook, stirring occasionally, for about three or four minutes until soft and translucent. Add the carrots and celery and continue cooking until soft.

Add about four finely chopped fresh roma tomatoes, and two large cans of crushed or diced tomatoes. Italian San Marzano tomatoes are especially flavorful. Throw in a pinch of salt or two and a couple grinds of pepper. Let this sit on medium-low heat and cook while you:

Brown one to two pounds of lean ground beef or turkey in a tablespoon of oil. You can skip this if you don’t like meat. You can do half and half. You can just do a little meat, or really um, beef it up. You could use soy crumbles, ground pork or veal, too. Whatever makes you happy. I usually use beef or buffalo (grass fed, organic) and/or ground white meat turkey (Heidi’s Hens organic — find it frozen at natural food stores like PCC).

Turn off the heat and take half the meat out of the pan and transfer it to a pot big enough for half the sauce plus beans and meat.

Put the transferred meat into this pot with a half teaspoon of cumin, a half teaspoon of chili powder and a couple sprinkles of cayenne pepper. Stir this together and add in about two cups of cooked beans — kidney, black, or white or a combination. You can use canned (this is about two small or one large can); if you are, include some of the liquid. If you’ve soaked and cooked dried beans, just add some additional water if you think the end result is too think. Add half of the sauce you have simmering on the stove. Let this all meld together over low heat until heated through. Then taste and adjust seasonings (cayenne and salt). Serve it up with chopped cilantro and some shredded cheese on top. Freeze half of it for another time.

Take the rest of the meat and put it back on the heat with about a quarter teaspoon of crushed fennel seed, when heated through, add to the remaining sauce. Stir in a half teaspoon each of dried oregano and basil, or a couple teaspoons of fresh, finely chopped. Add in two jars of slightly drained marinated artichoke heart quarters (I like the fire roasted ones) and about a cup or two of good red wine. Let this simmer and cook down so it’s not so soupy. Taste occasionally and adjust to taste, adding salt, pepper, or even a little red pepper flake if you like. Serve over pasta with some nice fresh Parmesan. Freeze the rest for another day.

You’ve chopped once, cooked for maybe an hour, and have at least four meals for your effort.

August 9, 2009

While here in Seattle we are always willing to go out on the deck and grill regardless of the weather, I know  for many of you, the grill is something that comes out of the garage in the summer and goes back in at the first rain. You wimps. The grill is good for steaks and hot dogs, and increasingly people are using it for all sorts of goodies — pizza, dessert (try grilling pineapple rings and topping with ginger ice cream, or nectarine and plum halves and top it with blackberry sorbet). But still, a great burger off the grill is a fine thing. I found a recipe a couple years ago in Sunset Magazine, and over the years, have played with it a little — mostly in an effort to cut the fat.

Start with a pound of ground lamb and a pound of ground white meat chicken or turkey. You could also use leanest ground beef. The goal is to cut the fat and keep the flavor. If you are under doctor’s orders to gain wait and eat fat, we hate you, but you can have a pure lamb experience. Just don’t brag about it. Mix the meet with a teaspoon of salt, a tablespoon of fresh minced rosemary and a finely minced jalepeno. Mix well and pat into eight burgers. While they grill — about seven or eight minutes each side (because of the chicken/turkey involve,d make sure they hit 160 degrees before you take them off the grill. Then let them rest for five minutes to finish cooking) — combine a cup of thawed frozen peas (or blanched fresh ones; you can even use sugar snap peas complete with the pods), the juice of a lime, a handful of fresh mint, a handful of flat-leaf parsley, a tablespoon of canola oil or light olive oil (not a heavy flavored oil), a half teaspoon of salt, and a finely chopped jalapeno. Put it all in a food processor and process until kind of chunky but still all in pieces. Taste. Add salt or lime juice to taste. You can add more mint, less jalapeno or even substitute lemon juice as your taste buds like. Serve this with the burgers.

Now, if you, like me, have made the mistake of not looking at what kind of squash plant you bought and find yourself suddenly inundated with summer squash, I’m here to tell you that you can also put this on the grill.

Slice it fairly thick — about a quarter inch or so. Brush with a light olive or canola oil, sprinkle with salt and chili powder. Grill on a hot spot on the grill for about a minute each side — you want nice dark grill marks, but if you let it cook too long, you’re going to see your summer squash’s downside: a high water content that makes it turn to mush when you cook it too long. When you pull it from the grill, squeeze some lime juice on it and garnish with chopped cilantro. Leftovers? Put it in a quesadilla with some nice cheese and a little salsa. That was dinner tonight.

Let’s say you don’t want to grill it, though. Try slicing it into sticks and saute in olive oil with salt, pepper, and some pine nuts. Don’t put too much in the pan at a time, and only let it get hot through or you’ll have that mush problem. When you’re done, mix in some pesto — regular, artichoke/lemon (pictured) or tomato. You can use store bought, or if you have enough basil in your garden (which I don’t this year, despite the hot summer), make it. I’ll go over how another day. Or another year. Leftovers? Put it in an omelet.

I haven’t tried it yet, but given the amount of squash coming in, next week I may try some yellow squash pancakes — grate it up with some parmesan, add an egg and some flour and fry it up. And after that, yellow squash version of zucchini bread. And then I start leaving squash on people doorsteps, ringing the bell, and running away.

Next up: how to use all that damn rhubarb before you freezer contains anything else.

June 1, 2009

A couple summers ago, Mia came for dinner. It was hot, and I had no desire to cook. And yes, it does get hot in Seattle. Anyway, I made this salad, and Mia has long wanted the recipe. The problem is, it doesn’t really have the recipe. But in honor of temps expected to be in the mid- to high-80s this week, I’m going to try to recreate it here.

A few hours before you’re going to eat, chill a can of white beans or kidney beans, a can of sliced black olives, and a can of hearts of palm.

When you’re ready to get dinner going, chop:

a half a bunch of celery, leaves included

a heart of romaine

a cucumber (peel and seed if you want; english or regular as you like)

2 roma tomatoes

a bunch of flat leaf parsley

a handful of cilantro

a quarter of a peeled jicama

a couple peeled carrots (you can grate the carrots if you want — probably only one if you grate it, though)

a couple of peeled sunchokes (also called Jerusalem artichokes)

Toss it all together, along with the drained and chopped (if necessary) contents of the chilled cans. Add some toasted pumpkin seeds and toss with olive oil and lime juice, salt and pepper. You can add some grated pepper jack cheese if you want. If you want to do a creamy dressing, mix your favorite bottled salsa with some plain yogurt. Yum!

Change the black olives to Kalamata, leave out the cilantro and jicama and add a can of quartered artichoke hearts (or a jar of marinated quartered hearts) and some crumbled feta for a Greek twist. For a more Asian version, skip the artichokes, jicama, cilantro and lime juice. Use some toasted sesame oil, soy sauce and rice wine vinegar with ground ginger and a little honey or sugar for a dressing. Add some sliced water chestnuts, sliced almonds grilled chicken. If you have some ramen in your cupboard, you can crumble the noodles into the salad for added crunch.

Make sure the salad is good and chilled and well tossed in your biggest bowl. Serve with some appropriate bread stuff and you have dinner, no oven necessary.

April 30, 2009

So all these soup recipes and what to serve with it? Lately, there’s been a whole lot of press about no-knead breads. I’ve seen recipes in newspapers, in Mother Earth News, in Cook’s Illustrated (you need to sign up for a trial membership if you aren’t a subscriber to get the recipes) and even on morning news shows. I love to make a double batch of this and keep it in the fridge for the week. I can make rolls, pizza crust, or a fresh loaf of bread any time. The bread stays fresh for about five days. Being the crunchy organic mom that I am, I use white whole wheat flour — Bob’s Red Mill sells an organic version I use — although I think a better tasting and slightly less healthy bread and pizza crust comes with a two-thirds/one-third mix of whole wheat and white flour. What can I say, I like to torture my child.

Here’s the recipe:

Ingredients

3 cups lukewarm water

1 1/2 tablespoons yeast

1 1/2 tablespoons salt

6 1/2 cups flour

Put all ingredients in a a really big bowl and mix with a spoon/your hands/use a stand mixer with the dough hook. Just mix it until it’s all moist. Cover and let it rise for a couple hours. Put it in the fridge for at least three hours, covered with a plastic lid or plate or something that fits nicely, but not too tightly.

When you want to use it: take what you need and add flour if you need to to shape it into a roll or stretch it out to be a pizza. For the latter, put on a pizza stone sprinkled with cornmeal or on an oiled baking sheet. Let it rest for about a half hour. Bake the rolls at 450 degrees until golden — about 15 minutes. A loaf will take 30-40 minutes. You can do it freeform on a pizza stone sprinkled with cornmeal, or in an oiled loaf pan. For pizza, bake until any cheese is melted and bubbly and the crust is brown. You can also make a pizza skin into a calzone: just fill it, fold it, pinch it together, and bake for about 20 minutes at 450 degrees.

Most of the recipes talk about putting in a pan of water with the bread to make a crisp crust. I don’t and my guys eat it up just fine. Hot bread, hot soup, yum.

Another favorite bread recipe comes from my five years living in Ireland, where I fell in love with Irish Brown Soda Bread. I love it toasted crisp with butter melting into it. I love it for breakfast, with a cup of tea, or with soup.

Ingredients:

3 cups whole wheat flour

1 cup white flour

1 cup regular rolled oats (not quick cooking or thick cut or steel cut oats)

1 1/2 teaspoons salt

1 1/2 teaspoons baking soda

Stir all this together in a bowl.

In a measuring cup, mix two cups buttermilk and two tablespoons molasses. I’ve used the dried buttermilk before and it’s worked fine — just follow the instructions on the package. You can also make your own buttermilk substitute with regular milk — a little under two cups — and a teaspoon of vinegar or lemon juice. Let the milk sit for about a half hour, then stir well.

Pour the liquid into the dry ingredients. Mix with a spoon and then get your hands in there and mix it all well. Knead it a few times on a floured surface and form it into a round loaf. Take a knife and cut half way down the loaf in a cross shape, making clear quarters out of the loaf. Put in an oven preheated to 425 degrees for 15 minutes, then lower the temperature to 350 and bake for another 30 minutes. Cool completely before cutting it into the quarters and slicing, toasting, buttering, and eating.

Enjoy!

We have been teased here in the great Northwest with glimpses of spring, only to be surprised by a sudden snow shower and/or lower than average temperatures. So it’s still soup season here. And there are some soups that are best in spring, when the ingredients are at their peak — think fresh pea and mint soup. I’ve had it but never made it, so I’m not going to talk about that here. But one of my favorite spring soups is Sorrel Soup.

Sorrel is a lemony perennial leafy herb. It grows easily and is hard to kill. There are variagated varieties that are pretty, but don’t taste nice. It’s worth growing, especially if you like this soup, because you can’t usually find it in large enough quantities at the supermarket to make it.

There are just five ingredients, not including salt and pepper:

Two leeks, white and light green areas sliced and well-rinsed

1 tablespoon of butter, olive oil, or canola oil

Three large waxy potatoes — like Yukon gold or Red Bliss — chopped. You can peel them if you want, but you don’t have to

1 quart low sodium chicken broth

6 cups (packed) sorrel leaves, no stems, chopped.

Saute the leeks in the fat, until translucent and softened. Add potatoes and broth. When the potatoes are soft, mash them in the pot and add the sorrel. It will cook down to a kind of ugly greyish green. Puree with a stick blender or in a blender. Add salt and pepper to taste.

This freezes well and tastes even better. Want to make it look pretty? Add a dollop of sour cream or creme fraiche and sprinkle with chopped chives and/or purple chive flowers.

February 2, 2009

A little over a year ago, I hosted a soup swap as part of National Soup Swap Day, an event made up by a really nice Seattlite a few years ago. I wrote about it at Nerd’s Eye View and got my first national clip writing about the trend in USA Weekend. This year, though, time got away from me, and I didn’t have a swap, which is a bummer, because it’s been cold and I haven’t always felt like cooking. Imagine if I had a freezer full of soup from which to choose.

Soup is easy. Especially once you have a bunch of stock on hand. Here are three really easy soups you can make and freeze. And if you want, you can make six quarts of one of these and still hold a soup swap. No one says you have to have it on January 23 every year.

Baked Potato Soup

For each serving:

1 cup of chicken or vegetable stock

1 medium sized potato — red, white, or yellow rather than a baker

2 tablespoons low-fat sour cream

2 tablespoons grated sharp cheddar cheese (reduced fat if you want, but NOT fat free)

salt and pepper to taste

2 slices bacon, cooked until crispy and crumbled for garnish

some snipped chives for garnish

Chop up the potato — you can peel it if you want, but there’s so much nutrition in the skin, Mia, you’d be better off leaving it — and either simmer it in water until tender or microwave it for a few minutes. Then add it to the broth, mash the potato, and add the sour cream. Add salt and pepper to taste. Now see how the consistency is. Is it too thick? If so, add more broth. When its simmering hot, add the cheese a little at a time, stirring constantly. Taste and adjust the seasoning. Use a stick or stand blender to give it a smooth consistency. If you like it chunkier, leave it. Serve it up and sprinkle with the snipped chives and crumbled bacon.

It’s really good and healthier than the stuff you get that’s made with cream or a roux. If it’s too thin, you can make a roux to thicken it. If you’re serving it to company and making a larger quantity, you might want to.

Broccoli Soup

Essentially, it’s the same soup without the sour cream, bacon, and chives. Finely chop up the flower part of a broccoli crown for each cup of broth and spud and add it at the very end — after the cheese (save the stems — you can peel the thick skin off and either chop and steam them, or grate them and make a broccoli slaw). Don’t let it cook longer than another five minutes or it turns from pretty green to ugly grayish green. Blend it and check for seasoning before you serve it up.

Beans Greens and Ham

This is the easiest soup ever and it freezes well.

1 quart chicken stock

2 cans drained white beans (navy, white kidney, or canneli beans — the latter two are actually the same)

1 bunch chard, trimmed and chopped (leaves and tender stems only. Save the thicker part of the stems and saute them or add them to salad raw)

1 cup of chopped ham — get ham steaks (2 is enough) so that you get nice ham cubes

Bring the ham, beans and broth to a boil. Taste for seasoning. Turn off the heat and add the chard. Serve after about five minutes, after the chard has had time to wilt a little. If you’re freezing this, let the soup cool and then add the chard. That way, when you heat it up, the chard won’t wilt into nothingness. Or you can freeze it without the chard and add it when you’re going to eat it. You can also substitute spinach, kale (which will need a longer time to cook) or even beet greens.

Given that you can buy quarts of pretty good quality chicken broth for a couple bucks, making a big pot of soup is, well, easier than pie.

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