Spring Soup

By Brianne Harrison

The 70 degree days were glorious and made it easy to forget that we’re just barely into spring, which means the occasional shower and cooler weather. For me, there’s nothing better on a chilly, wet day than a nice hot bowl of soup. The recipe below is my take on kale and white bean soup. I ran out of kale and substituted a zucchini I found in the fridge, and tossed in some sausage I had in the freezer. The results were warming and delicious:

Spring Sausage Soup
½ lb turkey or chicken sausage, casings removed
1 zucchini, diced
Clove of garlic, minced
1 can white (navy) beans, drained and rinsed
4 cups chicken stock
olive oil
salt and freshly ground black pepper

1. Put a medium sized soup pot over medium heat and add just enough olive oil to coat the bottom. When heated, crumble the sausage into the pot and cook, stirring, until the sausage is browned evenly. Remove sausage to a paper towel-lined plate to drain.

2. Pour off any excess grease from the sausage and replace the pot over the heat. Add the zucchini and garlic and sauté briefly, for about 2 minutes, just until the zucchini starts to brown slightly.

3. Return the sausage to the pot and add the chicken stock. Bring the soup to a boil. Add the beans, and cook for about three minutes. Season to taste. Spoon into bowls and serve with crusty whole-grain bread.

Cook’s note: This is a highly adaptable recipe. You can replace the zucchini with chopped spinach or kale (just omit the sautéing step if you use these greens), or make this vegetarian by removing the sausage, adding more beans, and replacing the chicken stock with vegetable. Let your imagination run wild!

Healthy Roundup:
Turkey or chicken sausage has far fewer calories and less fat than pork sausage, but the same amount of protein. It’s now available at most grocery stores.

Beans, as most of us know, are high in protein and cholesterol-lowering fiber and low in fat. The high fiber content helps keep your blood sugar stable after the meal, so you feel fuller longer. They’re also a good source of folate, manganese, vitamin B1, phosphorus, copper, magnesium, and iron.

Zucchini is noted as an excellent source of manganese and vitamin C, and a very good source of magnesium, vitamin A, fiber, potassium, folate, copper riboflavin, and phosphorus. Many of these nutrients have been shown to help prevent atherosclerosis and diabetic heart disease, and the magnesium can help reduce high blood pressure and the risk of heart attack and stroke.

The Perfect Picnic & BBQ Salad

By Pat Tanner

I have serious issues with the usual summer side salads. I think mayonnaise-dressed salads like potato, macaroni, and coleslaw are just plain wrong – they’re heavy when you want light and worrisome when left unrefrigerated for any length of time. And don’t get me started on three-bean salad, the mushy, acrid bane of my childhood summers. (Does anyone even eat three-bean salad anymore?)

So it is with great pride that I share with you the perfect alternative: black-eyed pea salad. This sweet-and-sour version comes from the family of Sylvia Woods, the matriarch of the landmark Sylvia’s Restaurant in Harlem. It’s delicious, colorful, made in advance, ridiculously easy (especially if you microwave the frozen peas), and it keeps well. Beyond that, black-eyed peas are an excellent source of calcium, folate, and vitamin A. If that’s too healthful for you, Emeril Lagasse makes a version with bacon.

Black-Eyed Pea Salad
Adapted from “Sylvia’s Family Soul Food Cookbook,” Sylvia Woods and Family (William Morrow 1999)

Serves 4 to 5

1-1/2 cups frozen black-eyed peas, cooked according to package directions
1/2 cup chopped green bell pepper
1/2 cup chopped red bell pepper
1/2 cup chopped celery
1/2 cup chopped red onion

For the dressing:
1/4 cup vegetable oil (not olive oil)
1/4 cup sugar
2 tablespoons cider vinegar
1 clove garlic, minced
1/2 teaspoon salt, or to taste
Fresh ground black pepper, to taste
1/2 teaspoon hot sauce, or to taste

In a large bowl combine the cooked black-eyed peas, green and red peppers, celery, and red onion.

In a small bowl whisk together the oil, sugar, vinegar, garlic, salt, pepper, and hot sauce. Pour the dressing over the beans. Toss. Let stand at room temperature for at least two hours or refrigerate overnight.

Submitted for Your Consideration: The Heirloom Bean

By Pat Tanner


Have you noticed how the economic downturn has generated countless stories in the food press on how to cut corners on your food budget? Frankly, I resent that food is the first place we are expected to economize. How about scaling back on clothes, cars, cable TV, and electronic gadgets? In my book, cheap foodstuffs that are inferior in taste and nutritional value should be a measure of last resort.

There is, however, one food source that has always provided bang-for-the-buck, high-quality protein: dried beans. They happen also to be devoid of cholesterol; are high in fiber, iron, and vitamins A and B; and have as much calcium as milk. I am a bean aficionado but realize that not everyone is, which is why I submit for your consideration dried heirloom beans – true treasures native to the Americas. Regular dried beans are to heirloom beans as imported hothouse tomatoes are to farmers’-market heirloom tomatoes.

This became clear to me when I ordered the “desert island” assortment from Rancho Gordo of Napa, CA. With extraordinary, highly distinctive flavors, Rancho Gordo’s leave regular supermarket beans in the dust. The assortment varies during the year: mine included Midnight Black, Vaquero, Runner Cannellini, Yellow Eye, and Christmas Limas. The last are my new favorites - they have a pronounced chestnut flavor inside tender beans that stay intact through the cooking process. I also went through my stash of Yellow Eyes in no time flat, making batches of authentic Senate Bean Soup using the recipe on the company’s website.

All but one of Rancho Gordo’s seventeen varieties sell for $4.95 a pound – amounting to a frugal $1.24 per main-course serving of high quality, delicious protein. I also found heirloom beans at my local Whole Foods, which sells the Gourmet Valley line at $6.49 for twelve ounces.