not just bean soup (carrots!)

When dr bob was a kid, Campbell's Bean and Bacon soup was his favorite. He used to slurp up the liquid part, carefully saving the beans for a squishy white bread bean sandwich. Even better than the ketchup sandwiches of the time. Those were the days. It never occurred to him that one could actually make soups from scratch. Or that one should read the label on those canned soups. [Salt city!]

Of course growing up brought an awareness that one could make soups without a can opener, but that it was still probably too much effort. Only recently was this myth shattered by experience. The dr bob cooking team, led by the initiative of ms_ani, began with some great and incidentally healthy cream soups from the 15th anniversary edition of The Moosewood Cookbook.

However, ms_ani was sick with the flu on this one occasion soon after The Big Move to the new corporate headquarters. dr bob knew soup was a good idea, and offered to hunt and forage out to a local supermarket for some of the stuff. But easily renounced this suggestion (laziness, what else?) at ms_ani's rejection of the offer (out of guilt at being responsible for his contemplated journey). Then bob remembered the latest women's magazine food special snatched at the checkout line—where a bean and potato soup had caught his eye during his speed scan for potentially promising recipes (ignoring the mandatory article on sex). Inventorying the required ingredients, only celery was missing. No big deal—just increase the carrots! And he did it, with some minor modifications, all in a pretty painless 40 minute time slot. The result: delicious, recalling childhood memories of the old bean soup days but with a new twist. Carrots. Thus justifying the $3.50 spent on the mag, which after closer examination only yielded two soup recipes as the realistic usable harvest, one still left untried.

ingredients

no frill web instructions

[Consult the illustrated hand printed recipe of the vanity press paper edition for the elaborated version with two illustrations: (1) carrots vs beans on the scales, with rabbit, thumbs up and (2) the trouble with spaghetti ]

1. Food process the carrots and celery, then sauté them in melted butter with pressed garlic in an 8 quart nonstick pot.
2. Meanwhile heat the broth, then add it to the veggie mixture with the coarsely chopped potatoes and dill. Simmer covered for about 20 minutes.
3. Stir together sour cream or yogurt, flour, salt and pepper, and add them to the pot with half the beans. Puree with a hand blender or in batches in a regular blender.
4. Add remaining beans. Cook and stir until heated through.
5. Serves 4-6. Leftover soup can be used as a pasta sauce like an Alfredo sauce.

notes

1. AND PASTA SAUCE? Sure. If it's pretty thick, it makes a great cream sauce for pasta. If you have a couple bowls left over, maybe a cup and a half or two, add it to some(*) al dente cooked pasta with some parmigiano and freshly ground pepper. We used a small open curled pasta, gnocchetti sardi, but this could work with cavatelli or orecchiette or even long pasta like fettuccini or spaghetti. Health wise, it crushes classic "Alfredo sauce". By the way, freshly ground pepper is also a good idea on each serving in the more traditional soup mode. And if you caught the "h" that slipped into the yoghurt/yogurt above, it's optional. We checked. Though we still lose points for inconsistency.
2. (*) 1 pound, the standard US dry pasta packaging size.