Tomato and Cannellini Bean Soup
Serves 6

This recipe comes from my brother-in-law, Ross. Well, technically he is not my brother-in-law, but boyfriend’s sister’s husband is a little much, isn’t it? Let’s just say brother-in-law.
Lots of people have been sending me their pulse recipes, and about once a week, a few people tell me that they’re really enjoying this project. It’s make me cook so much more frequently. But I haven’t just made pulses. Since the start of 2016, I’ve tried a bunch of new recipes including slow cooker oatmeals (one with pear and rosewater, yum), a veggie lo mein, and brownies. (I’ve also discovered that something seems to be wrong with my oven and so my goal is to get that fixed. I’m going to buy an oven thermometer today). I bought a spiralizer and have experimented with zucchini noodles, and apple spirals too.

While I made this tomato and bean soup recipe, I made multiple mistakes, but still managed to make something that tasted good. My write up for this recipe may be a little more confusing than my normal recipes. My sister-in-law, Sarah, tells me that Ross loves commitment recipes. So this is a little more hands-on than I would normally do for a soup, but it turned out nicely. The recipe is from Bon Appetit.
You can find the original here- http://www.bonappetit.com/recipe/tomato-and-cannellini-bean-soup

The original doesn’t have all my weird notes and additions on it.

Ingredients:
For the beans:
1 cup dried cannellinni or other small white beans, soaked overnight
1 onion
4 garlic cloves
2 bay leaves
salt

For the soup:
4 tablespoons olive oil, plus more for drizzling
1 28 oz can of whole peeled tomatoes, drained
½ teaspoon crushed red pepper flakes
salt,
1 onion, chopped
1 fennel bulb, cored and chopped
4 garlic cloves, thinly sliced
1 tablespoon sherry vinegar
4 cups veggie or chicken broth
1 bunch Swiss chard or kale- stems removed, leaves torn into pieces
Chopped almonds for garnish

To make the beans:
Combine beans, onion, garlic, and bay leaves in a large pot and add cold water to cover by 2″. Bring to a simmer over medium heat, add several pinches of salt, and reduce heat to low. Continue to cook until beans are creamy but still hold their shape, 35–45 minutes. Let beans cool in cooking liquid; discard bay leaves. You can make the beans three days ahead. Cover and chill.

Soup
Heat 2 Tbsp. oil in a large heavy pot over medium-high. Add tomatoes, ½ tsp. red pepper flakes, and a pinch of salt and cook tomatoes, undisturbed, until caramelized and borderline blackened on one side, about 5 minutes. Break up tomatoes, scraping bottom of pot, and continue to cook, scraping and stirring occasionally, until tomatoes are caramelized all over, about 5 minutes more. Transfer tomatoes to a plate. Heat another 2 Tbsp. oil in same pot over medium. Add onion, fennel, garlic, and a pinch or so of red pepper flakes, if desired; cook, stirring often, until vegetables are soft and starting to brown around edges, 8–10 minutes. Stir in vinegar and tomatoes, scraping up browned bits. Drain beans and add to pot along with broth (for a thicker soup, use half of the broth plus 2 cups bean-cooking liquid). Bring to a simmer; season with salt. Cook until flavors meld, 30–45 minutes.

Just before serving, stir in chard and cook until wilted. Ladle soup into bowls, top with almonds, and drizzle with oil.

This soup is good and will last for a long while. It tastes better the day after, actually.

Now I’m going to tell you everything that I did differently: Most of these just had to do with my own mistakes.

1. I did not pre-soak the beans. So this meant that I had to simmer them for well over an hour and had to keep on adding water to them. I used a kind of bean that I got at Superstore. They were called “small white bean” and they were cheap and tasty. I would definitely use them again.

2. I did not drain the tomatoes, and cooked them in their own juice. So they didn’t brown or caramelize. It didn’t seem to matter.

Ross told me that he adds the water from the beans to the soup. So I added the water from the beans, and then 4 cups of broth. I had about five or 6 cups of broth total. The beans sucked up a lot of water, so it’s good to have a lot of broth with this. If I made this soup again, I would pre-soak the beans.

Ross told me that kale keeps better than Swiss Chard, so I used kale instead of Swiss chard. It was a great substitution.

I have a nut allergy, so I didn’t drizzle almonds on top. I tried to add pumpkin seeds (that’s my normal substitution when something calls for almonds.) The pumpkin seeds added nothing. Don’t bother with them.

This was my first time using a fennel bulb. I should have learned how to cook fennel a long time ago, since Nathan and I grew a garden one year at a friend’s and we managed to grow the world’s largest fennel bulbs. Unfortunately, we weren’t sure what to do with them.

Here’s how you prep a fennel bulb.

1. You cut off the fronds. (The one I bought at the store did not have fronds).
2. Cut the bulb in half. (Obviously, you need a good knife to do this)
3. Cut out the core in the bulb.
4. Cut the bulb into small pieces.

(I found a Martha Stewart youtube video on how to prepare fennel and that’s how I got these tips)

I liked the crunch of fennel and found it had a licorice taste. I liked the taste better after the second day.