First, I would like to say that I just cut up a whole chicken for the first time. I have several observations to make:

1. Joints are a lot easier to find and cut through when a chicken is cooked.

2. The sound of a knife hacking through bone is really, really awful.

3. I think I cut the breasts in half the wrong way.

4. I do not have a future as a butcher.

5. But I did it.

Moving on…

Second, I made a bean soup yesterday that I absolutely am in love with. Ohmygoodness, did I love it.

As for Ryan… Let’s just say, I’ll probably have to just relive this soup in my dreams.

I cannot, however, keep this soup to just my dreams, and so I’m going to share the recipe. It is tres simple — so much so that it doesn’t even look like much. But trust me — the flavor is perfectly round and balanced and delicate and so good!

Tuscan White Bean Soup
from The Best Soups & Stews, by America’s Test Kitchen

6 oz pancetta (Italian unsmoked bacon), chopped into cubes
1 lb dried cannellini beans, rinsed and picked over (I used great northern, since that’s all my grocery sold)
1 lg onion unpeeled and halved pole to pole
4 medium garlic cloves, unpeeled
1 bay leaf
Salt and pepper
Olive Oil
1 small onion, chopped
3 cloves of garlic, minced
1 sprig fresh rosemary

1. Cook pancetta in a large stockpot over medium heat until just golden, 8 – 10 minutes. Add 12 cups water, beans, halved onion, unpeeled garlic, bay leaf, and 1 tsp salt. Bring to a boil over medium-high heat. Cover the pot partially, reduce the heat to low, and simmer, stirring occasionally, until the beans are almost tender, 1 – 1 1/4 hours. Remove the pot from the heat, cover, and let sit for 30 minutes (to let beans completely cook).

2. Drain beans, saving liquid. You should have 5 cups of broth; add water if you have less. Discard onion, garlic, bay leaf, and pancetta. Spread beans on a rimmed sheet to cool.

(Or, alternatively, discard onion and garlic and bay leaf, attempt to discard pancetta but realize it’s too small and who cares anyway, and put soup in the fridge. Continue the process tomorrow.)

3. Saute onion and garlic in stockpot. Add broth, beans, and liberal salt and pepper. Bring to boil over medium high heat. Add rosemary sprig, cover, and let sit, off heat, for 15-20 minutes. Remove sprig and serve.

(Or saute onion and garlic in a skillet, then add to the soup, and jump back into the recipe as written.)

Oh, the rosemary! the garlic! the creamy white beans and beautiful clear broth! Oh, yum!

I’m a slow learner sometimes.

Take, for instance, my experience with tuna fish.

I don’t really care for tuna fish, except right from the can in a salad. No mayo, thanks. (Or, of course, in a steak form, seared on the outside, raw on the inside, or, of course, completely raw on top of sticky rice with soy sauce and wasabi [aka sushi].) Even on a salad, I prefer albacore. However, as we all know, albacore is more expensive. So, being frugal, I never bought albacore, and just bought the regular stuff when it was on sale.

And there, in my pantry, would sit all of those regular cans of tuna. All that money saved, just so I could have cans on my shelf.

Finally, I have a breakthrough: Spend a few extra cents on tuna I’ll actually eat, and stop wasting all that money on tuna I’ll never touch.

Duh.

Two nights ago, I made this. (Don’t even ask me how I find all these random sites. None of us knows how we end up where we end up on the internet.) Ryan said, “Mmmm, not my favorite.” I, on the other hand, happily consumed ever last bit for lunch the next day.

My modifications and my conclusions:

I did not have an avocado. (Ryan would probably have liked it better if I had.)
I did not add chilis or peppers, beause Ryan doesn’t like hot.
I never use raw onion, because it makes us both ill. Instead, I chopped up 4+ cloves of garlic. A little bite, a lot of flavor… perfect. (I do that with guac, too.)

This was good the first night, but way better the next day. So my conclusion is that this should sit overnight for best results.

K. That’s all!