Apologies and a dinner recipe

It seems that in the past few weeks we've been abandoning the blog.  I promise that it isn't so.  After a week of being incredibly busy, my son contracted what I have been referring to as "The Plague", but is rather less extreme.  It starts with a fever, (pink eye in my son's case), and moves on to become a stomach flu.  

Want to know what makes you want to write about food less than having your toddler come down with the stomach flu?  Well, getting it yourself.  That's right, after spending a week in quarantine with my son, I spent another week in solitary confinement bed myself.  Thankfully, my husband and fabulous friends made my life substantially easier.  Finally, we are healthy again, and ready to start eating.  But, since my ability to eat out has been severely cut back this past week, I am going to share a recipe I have been meaning to post in any case!

Recently I found myself searching for a good white bean soup recipe, due to a large amount of leftover dried white beans from an earlier project.  I opted to go a modified version of this recipe from Williams Sonoma.  The first, and biggest, difference between mine and the Williams Sonoma recipe is the use of dried, rather than canned cannellini beans, but I also added white wine and replaced the chicken with veggie broth, but I would have used fresh chicken stock in a heartbeat, if I had had some at the time, and I played with the veggies and pancetta a bit.  Instead of serving it with the tapanade and croustini that they suggest, I went for kale, after two friends mentioned that their children had wolfed down these kale chips.  But I did have some bread to use, so, clearly, that was destined for garlic bread.

WHITE BEAN SOUP

INGREDIENTS

• Olive oil, as necessary
• One package pancetta, chopped (I take off the big fatty bits because we're trying to reduce fat in our house)
• One yellow onion
• Three carrots
• Three stalks of celery
• 6 garlic cloves
• 1 1/4  pounds of dried cannellini beans, soaked overnight and rinsed
• one box vegetable broth
• ½ c white wine
• thyme
• salt
• pepper
• ½ c Parmigiano-Reggiano 

·      INSTRUCTIONS

1. Cook the rinsed cannellini beans in unsalted broth until tender.  Set aside.
2. Chop onion, carrots, and celery.    Mince garlic cloves.
3. Saute pancetta until crisp, then add onion, carrots, and celery and continue to sauté until the vegetables are starting to soften.  Add garlic, and sauté one more minute.  Add to the beans.  Add wine and thyme.  Bring to simmer and  cook for 10-15 minutes.  Add salt and pepper to taste.
4. Blend about ½ - ¾ of the soup until smooth, depending on how chunky you want it.  Add blended soup back in, mix it, and keep warm until serving.

KALE CHIPS

INGREDIENTS

• Kale
• Olive Oil
• Salt

INSTRUCTIONS

1. Set oven to 300 degrees. 
2. Wash kale.  Remove center stem and cut into 2-3 inch pieces.  
3. Toss until lightly coated with olive oil and add a bit of salt (it doesn’t take too much).  
4. Spread evenly in one layer on cookie sheet (you may want to line the sheet with parchment paper) bake until crisp, usually between 15-20 minutes.  
5. Remove chips and try not to eat them all before dinner!

GARLIC BREAD

INGREDIENTS

• Crusty bread, sliced
• ¼-½  c Olive oil
• 6 cloves Garlic, minced

INSTRUCTIONS

1. In a small saucepan, heat olive oil and garlic.  Remove from heat as soon as it starts to sizzle, before garlic browns.   
2. Set oven on a low broil.  
3. Lay bread on cookie sheet and toast one side of the bread, watching to make sure it doesn't burn.
4. Remove bread, turn over the slices on the cookie sheet, and brush with the garlic and olive oil.  
5. Place back in oven and, watching carefully to make sure it doesn’t burn, broil until golden on the edges.