Butternut Squash, White Bean, and Kale Soup

I've said it here before but I rarely get the opportunity to cook. Living in a dorm really limits my resources, and my hectic schedule also makes it difficult to cook more than oatmeal or a baked potato. Thankfully I'll be living in an apartment-style suite next year that comes fully equipped with everything a cooking student could want: a refrigerator, a microwave, a stove, an oven, and - here's the real kicker - a dishwasher. Is it crazy to think that a dishwasher is the most underrated and under-appreciated kitchen tool out there?

Because I'm me, I've already started thinking about recipes that would be suitable for college life. My mind immediately goes to soups and stews, which are endlessly adaptable, easy to make ahead, and can last a while. There's also the added benefit that they can feed a lot of people for not that much money.

Last weekend I spent a few days at home and made this butternut squash and white bean soup for my mom and me.  I changed a handful of things from the original recipe, but in the end, I am extremely pleased with how it turned out. The end result was a hearty soup with a mixture of textures and flavors. The white beans were creamy, the butternut squash was perfectly tender, and the kale, a last minute addition, gave the soup a much-needed green component and definitely boosted the soup overall. For being so simple, the soup is surprisingly complex. There's a lot going on, but I think that only makes it more fun to eat.

The most unique thing about this soup - what really makes it worthy of sharing - is the balance between savory, sweet, and acidic flavors. The white beans and chicken broth are earthy and balanced by the sweet squash and acidic additions of tomatoes and dry white wine.  Altogether, they combine to form a vibrantly colored and delicious soup that is ideal for any kitchen table.


Butternut Squash, White Bean, and Kale Soup
Inspired by Sweet Paul Magazine via Dancing by the Light 

I changed quite a few things about the original recipe to adapt our tastes and what we had on hand. The original recipe instructed you to cook the butternut squash in a pan with the onions and garlic until the squash was tender. Since we don't have a pan ginormous enough to fit that much onion and squash, I improvised and roasted the squash in the oven for 20 minutes, until the white beans and broth had finished simmering together. After additional time in the broth, the squash had softened just enough.
I prefer soups to be pretty loose and not so thick, so I added a few cups of water after the soup had simmered and then seasoned the broth to taste. If you like thicker soups, you can certainly omit this step. As it sits, the soup thickens considerably, so you can add chicken broth to loosen it up some then, as well.

Yield: 8 to 10 servings

1 pound dry white beans (such as Great Northern, Navy, or Cannellini)
6 cups chicken or vegetable broth 
1 teaspoon olive oil
1 medium onion, diced
3 cloves minced garlic
Kosher salt
Freshly ground black pepper
1 medium butternut squash, peeled and diced into 1-inch pieces 
1 cup dry white wine
1 teaspoon sugar, or to taste
4 Roma tomatoes, chopped into 1-inch pieces
1 teaspoon dried thyme
1 bunch kale, stemmed and torn into bite-size pieces

Rinse the beans in a colander, picking them over to remove any small rocks. Place the beans in a large pot and add 8 cups water. Bring to a boil, remove the pot from the heat, cover, and let sit for 1 hour. After 1 hour, drain the beans. Return the beans to the pot and add 6 cups of chicken broth. Heat the beans and broth over medium heat and simmer for 45 minutes, until the beans are just soft.

Meanwhile, in a medium skillet heat the olive oil over medium-high heat. Add the onions and cook, stirring occasionally, until the onions soften and become translucent. Add the garlic, a pinch of salt, and a pinch of pepper and continue to cook until the garlic becomes fragrant, about 1 minute more.

After the beans and broth have been simmering together for 20 minutes, preheat the oven to 400 degrees F and line a baking sheet with foil. Roast the butternut squash for 20 minutes, until it just starts to become tender.

After the beans and broth have simmered for 45 minutes, add the onions and garlic and the squash to the pot. Add the wine, sugar, tomatoes, and thyme. Stir to combine. Continue to cook for 45 minutes more. After 45 minutes, the soup will have reduced and thickened some. If you like, you can thin it out with 2 cups of water and adjust the seasonings to taste from there.

Add the kale to the soup and cook for 10 minutes more, until the kale has softened some but remains al dente. Taste the broth and season to taste. Serve hot with crusty bread to soak up the delicious broth.

The soup will keep, stored in an airtight container, for up to a week. As it sits, it will thicken considerably. When reheating, add additional broth to loosen it up.

Rosemary White Bean Soup

It seems a bit mundane of me to come over here and tell you about how the weather has been lately. Of course, there are exceptions; the six-plus inches of snow that Atlanta received this year, not to mention the unexpected (yet still predicted) white Christmas, were undoubtedly the craziest bout of weather I've ever seen in all my life. (In a close second was the humongous flooding that Atlanta experienced in 2009 that led to a "flood day" school canceling.) But to recount the various weather conditions of the past few days, no matter how varied and strange they were, seems, quite simply, lame.

I will say that the combination of rain and cold and crazy-long days of classes has made me yearn for something comforting. Often I seek this form of comfort in a phone call to my mom, a quick but all-too-brief sojourn browsing through my Google reader, donning a warm and familiar sweater, or enjoying my favorite meals of soupy oatmeal and warm lemonade and almonds.

I will pause right there for those last few words to really set in. "Soupy oatmeal and warm lemonade and almonds." No, your eyes do not deceive you. I prefer my oatmeal drowning in cinnamon-laced, salted water with a bit of Splenda. My beverage of choice is generic Crystal Light warmed in the microwave for two and half minutes. On the side I enjoy exactly five raw almonds, which I soak briefly in the warm lemonade to soften the skins a little.

Oh my gosh, I am so weird. I won't pretend to be offended if you think I am crazy. I am pretty sure anyone who has ever seen me drink hot lemonade or sloshy oatmeal would agree. But what can I say? My ultimate comfort food is oatmeal.

When I had the conversation with my sister and mom about our comfort foods they gave traditional (ahem, boring) answers: garlic mashed potatoes or macaroni and cheese. Me?

"Oatmeal."

"Your comfort food is oatmeal?!" they asked incredulously.

"Yeah," I responded, only a bit defensively.

Now I don't remember exactly what they said next, but it went along the lines of "How sad is it that your comfort food is one that you eat pretty much every day? Do you really need to be comforted that much?"

Well, when you put it like that.... I think it was about that time that I changed my answer to cheesecake, which is wholly inaccurate, because cheesecake is certainly not a comfort food for me.

Anyway, their response got me thinking about what my favorite comfort food really is. Certainly not pasta, although I enjoy a pasta symphony as much as the next girl. I'm inclined to cop out and declare Thanksgiving dinner as my comfort food, but that's really more of a collection of foods and the entire sentiment that surrounds the holiday really makes the food taste that much better.

Recently though, the second semester stress has started to set in, which has given me an opportunity to examine the foods that I really crave when the Physics homework is due tomorrow, or the Calculus homework is largely undecipherable, or the stupid MATLAB code won't work, or the prospect of writing my first college paper has me nervous since it's been about eight months since I've written any type of literature analysis.

(On a side note, on a scale from one to ten, how lame would it be for me to write about The O.C. and its portrayal of outsiders for my English class, which is about outsider narratives? A part of me knows that the resulting essay would probably be better and more knowledgeable than anything I could ever write about another film or play or novel. The more rational part of me thinks it's the most ridiculous idea.)

When I really thought about it, I realized that the food I crave most when I'm down, or when it's so cold outside that my face goes numb, or when I've come back to the room after eight hours of classes, tired and hungry and looking for any type of sustenance, is soup.

I am in love with soups of almost all kinds. I love chilis, chicken soups, noodle soups, tomato soups, chickpea soups, vegetable soups, chowders, gumbos, lentil soups, and mushroom soups. My favorite soup of all is split pea soup, which I could enjoy for days on end and never tire of. But I think this soup comes in a close second. (Full disclosure - I didn't actually make this soup. My mom did. But isn't comfort food all the more comforting when you're not the one who makes it?)

Infused with earthy rosemary and extra virgin olive oil, the soup has natural body from the white beans, some of which remain whole. In fact, aside from the flavor, one of my favorite things about this soup is the texture. I prefer all my soups to have some sort of texture; I'm not a fan of completely smooth purees or clear broths. If I'm eating soup, I need something to chew on, or at least an element that adds some textural interest. Luckily, this soup hits all the right notes. No matter that today was seventy degrees and sunny, I'd still warm up a comforting bowl and enjoy every spoonful. 

Rosemary White Bean Soup
Adapted from Ina Garten

I smiled to myself when I read the recipe for this soup. In usual Ina fashion, she calls for "good" olive oil. Anyway, if you can't find dried cannellini beans, you can substitute Great Northern or navy beans, which have a similar flavor and are usually more readily available. In Ina's original recipe, she calls for the soup to be pureed. However, my mom and I both thought that it would be just fine to mash the cooked beans with a potato masher. This way, you can avoid hauling out and then cleaning the food processor, and the soup retains a nice chunky but creamy consistency. Depending on how salty the chicken stock is that you use, you may need to add less salt than called for.

Yield: 6 to 8 servings

1 pound dried white cannellini beans
2 medium onions, sliced
1 tablespoon extra virgin olive oil
2 garlic cloves, minced
1 large sprig fresh rosemary (6 to 7 inches in length)
8 cups chicken stock
1 bay leaf
2 teaspoons kosher salt
1/2 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper

Place the beans in a medium bowl and cover with water by at least 1 inch. Allow the beans to chill in the refrigerator for at least 6 hours or overnight. After the beans have soaked, drain them.

In a large stockpot over medium-low heat, saute the onions with the olive oil until the onions are translucent, about 10 to 15 minutes, stirring occasionally. Add the garlic and reduce the heat to low. Cook for 3 more minutes, stirring occasionally.

Add the drained white beans, rosemary sprig (whole), chicken stock, and bay leaf. Cover, bring to a boil, and simmer for 30 to 40 minutes, until the beans are very soft. If, after 40 minutes, the beans are not very soft, reduce the heat to low and continue to cook the beans until they become very soft and tender. (Our beans took a while longer than 40 minutes to fully soften, so we kept them over low heat for about an hour. After this time, they had softened to just the right texture. Depending on your stove or beans, this process may not take as long or it may take longer. The best way to know if the beans are ready is to just taste one. It should be very tender and smooth.)

Once the beans are soft, remove the rosemary branch (all of the rosemary will have fallen off) and the bay leaf. Use a potato masher to break up the beans. The soup should be a little chunky with some whole beans remaining. (You can see from the photos that the soup is about 75% smooth.) Add salt and pepper to taste. Serve hot.

The soup will keep, well covered in the refrigerator, for up to a week.