This past weekend, I was talking to a woman who made her own cactus fruit juice. Where, I queried, did she procure cactus fruits? “Oh, you know,” she said. “Down the block.”
This is one of those New York things that I love: the weird ingredients you find whether you’re looking for them or not. Years ago, as an impoverished new owner of an MFA degree, I was introduced to the East Village Cheese Shop (3rd Ave between 9th and 10th), a wonderland of steeply discounted cheese, obviously, but also all sorts of other oddities. On a recent trip there, I found these beautiful Community Grains Snow Cap heirloom beans, and if the price tag did not convince me to pick them up ($1.50 for a whole pound!!), then the description on the package certainly did: “Known for their jaunty white caps, smooth texture, and surprisingly potato-like flavor.” Jaunty white caps?! Sold!
Of course, I’m often guilty of, say, buying something because of the eloquent description on the label and then not knowing what to do with it. So I made up this easy soup recipe for my beans, hearty and good for curing you of this new chilly nip in the air. Sure, you could substitute white beans, but why not scour your supermarket for something you haven’t used before, something…jaunty, perhaps?
Snow Cap Bean Soup with Veggie Sausage Meatballs
- 1½ cups dried beans
- 1 large carrot
- 1 red onion
- 4 cloves garlic
- Olive oil
- 7 cups water or vegetable stock (or a combination of the two)
- Seasoning to taste (I used salt, pepper, and a couple cubes of our frozen summer pesto)
- Baby spinach
- 1 package of Gimme Lean, sausage style
Soak the beans overnight. Drain them when you’re ready to cook and set aside. Finely dice the carrot, onion and garlic. In a large saucepan, sauté the vegetables slowly with the olive oil until they start to caramelize, then add the water or stock. Be creative and season it up until it’s tasty, then bring it to a gentle boil. Add the beans and cook for about 1 hour 20 minutes or until the beans are tender.
Meanwhile, clean the spinach and form the “sausage” into balls. Brown the balls in a frying pan until they are a little crispy on the outside. To serve, put a handful of spinach leaves and three or four meatballs in a soup bowl; ladle the boiling soup over them. Serve with slices of crusty bread.