Carrie at has started a little dinner challenge . I’ve decided to participate, since just about the only thing creative I can do these days is whip up something tasty in the kitchen. It’s cold outside, and cooking keeps me warm.
Unfortunately, I’m not the best at sticking with recipes, which is why I rarely post them. The soup pictured above started out from a recipe in Deborah Madison’s Vegetarian Cooking for Everyone (I might have mentioned this tome before — it’s my kitchen bible), but quickly mutated into something else altogether. I tend to take recipes as a rough guide — inspiration, almost — and then do whatever I can to alter them to my taste. It’s easy to improvise, especially with soups, and with a few years of vegetarian café soup duty behind me, I have a few tricks in my soup arsenal. In any case, here’s what I remember of the recipe, as I made it.
Vegetable and White Bean Soup with Kale and Freekeh
- 1 medium onion, finely diced
- 1 tablespoon rosemary, chopped
- 1 tablespoon cumin, ground
- 2 carrots, diced
- 6 garlic cloves, sliced
- 1 cup parsley, chopped
- olive oil
- 1 cup tomatoes, fresh or canned, diced, with their juices
- 2 cups black-eyed peas, dry, rinsed
- 1 cup navy or other white beans, dry, rinsed
- 1 cup freekeh (green wheat; I got mine at a Lebanese market), or a hearty rice, rinsed
- nutritional yeast (great for flavor in veggie-based soups)
- 1/2 head lacinato kale, washed, trimmed, and chopped
- red pepper flakes
- salt and pepper
- grating cheese, such as romano or parmesan
Heat a tablespoon of olive oil in a large soup pot over medium heat. Add the onion, carrot, rosemary, and cumin and cook until the onion is softened, about 10 minutes. Add the parsley and 5 of the sliced cloves of garlic and cook a few minutes more. Add the beans and tomato and 3 quarts water, bring to a boil. Lower heat and simmer until the beans begin to soften, about an hour. Add the freekeh or rice, 2 – 3 teaspoons salt, and a good handful of nutritional yeast and continue cooking until beans are soft and freekeh/rice is cooked through, about 30 minutes.
In the meantime, heat a tablespoon of olive oil in a large sautee pan. Cook the remaining garlic and a pinch of red pepper flakes until fragrant. Add the kale and cook until soft, about 5 minutes. Stir the cooked kale into the soup. Ladle into bowls and top with shaved romano and extra pepper.