White Bean and Bacon Soup

Image by Shana Lee via Flickr

What to do?

I may be shifting the focus of this blog away from myself and more on to my interests for the next little while.  I am still up in the air on that, but……it’s a long story and basically I am not going to get into the who’s and what’s on here.   There are way too many people that I know IRL that are not privy to any aspect of my life anymore and I would like to keep it that way.

So, I leave you in the grace of the Almighty with a wonderful soup recipe…..that I am making right now……and I can only begin to tell you how good my kitchen smells…..

It is from the City Tavern in Philadelphia. If you are ever in Old City Philadelphia, you must visit.   I did make a couple noteable changes to the recipe….I doubled the amount of slab bacon and added some liquid smoke.

White Bean and Bacon Soup

Serves 8-10

~Ingredients~

1 pound dried navy beans

2 ½ quarts of chicken stock

4 tbs unsalted butter

2 medium yellow yellow onions

3 garlic cloves, chopped

8 large plum tomatoes (1 pound) seeded and chopped

½ pound slab bacon, cut into ¼ inch cubes

1 tsp dried marjoram

salt and freshly ground black pepper

2 bunches fresh parsley, finely chopped, (about 12 tbs)

~~~~OVERNIGHT PREPARATION RECOMMENDED~~~~~~

To pre-soak the beans, place them in a colander and rinse thoroughly with water to clean. Place the beans in a large bowl and cover with water. Let stand at room temperature for at least 8 hours or overnight.

Drain and thoroughly rinse the beans. Place them in a large stock pot, add the stock and bring to a boil over high heat.

Reduce the heat to low and cook for about 1 hour, or until beans are soft.

Melt the butter in a large skillet over medium heat, add the onions and garlic and sautee for 5 minutes, until light brown. Add the tomatoes, bacon, and marjoram, and saute for 3 to 5 minutes more until the tomatoes begin to dissolve.

Add the tomato mixture to the beans in the stock pot. Simmer the soup for about 10 minutes, until the tomatoes are soft. Season with salt and pepper to taste.

Just before serving, stir in the parsley.

(From The City Tavern Cookbook; Recipes from the Birthplace of American Cuisine by Walter Staib)

Happy Mother’s Day!

In lieu of the traditional sleeping in and having breakfast in bed, which is a pretty unreasonable expectation with our kids, we all got up and went over to the American Star Diner for breakfast.  We got their early and were able to walk right, sit right down, and have our breakfast in 5 minutes.  The kids were kind of behaved, although Melissa was more interested in my bacon than her pancake.  Then, the hubby and Daniel went off to Home Depot.  So Melissa and I are just relaxing now.

Yesterday, the hubby got to go to a Phillies game with a bunch of our friends. (I am not too JEALOUS about that)  So, I packed the kids up and went to Mom‘s.  She watched the kids while I borrowed my parent’s truck and drove back home.  I loaded the truck up with “stuff” for a garage sale.  The stuff consisted of tons and tons of outgrown baby clothes and odds and ends.  It felt great to clear some space from the office. One step closer to moving Daniel into the office.

I called my mom this morning to sing “Happy Mother’s Day” to her.  This is my 3rd* mothers day.  I kind o

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f count the first one since the monsters were growing in my belly for my first one in 2007.

 

And, I found someone on face.book that has first row tickets to a Phillie’s game this month….so that will be my Anniversary present (yes, it will be 4 years on the 5/22….and 44 years for my mom and dad).  We are going to the City Tavern for lunch that day.  So, May is turning out to be kind of an exciting month.

The kitchen renovation start on Tuesday and I still have work to do to get everything out of there.  It is a real pain in the butt, but is going to be sooooo worth it.

So, Happy Mother’s Day, ladies.  And my thought, prayers, and many hugs to those still waiting for their own Mother’s Day.