Monday, August 8, 2011

Cannellini Bean Soup with Arugula Salad

Hello my dears, tonight I cooked for my Mom and Sister, a recipe out of
a new Italian cooking book I found for four dollars at TJ Maxx :)

It is a Cannellini Bean Soup (vegetarian, for my sister) with a delicious Arugula salad.
At first I was sad that I couldn't use chicken stock instead of vegetable,
but it turned out tasting delicious anyway.



Ingredients for the soup:
1 can of cannellini beans, drained
*the recipe called for dried beans that be soaked overnight... yeah right.
7 cups of chicken or vegetable stock
4oz of corallini pasta, or any soup pasta for that matter.
*I used more than called for because I didn't want too much broth left over in the end.
6 tbsp. of olive oil
2 garlic cloves, chopped finely
4 tbsp. of chopped parsley
salt and pepper

*I used one bay leaf and shaved romano cheese as well



Ingredients for the salad:
Arugula lettuce
tomato
shaved romano cheese
Olive oil
lemon juice
balsamic vinegar
finely chopped garlic
chopped basil
(any other spices you would want, I used salad supreme)
salt and pepper




Directions:
Add the beans and stock to a pot with a thick bottom and bring to a boil.
Once the beans are heated and softened, take about half of the beans and a little stock
and put them into a food processor/ blender and create a smooth puree.
Add the puree back to the soup and stir well.

Bring the soup back to a boil, and add the pasta, stirring so that it does not stick.
Cook for 8 to 10 minutes. While cooking the pasta, heat 2 tablespoons of olive oil
in a small pan with the chopped garlic, only cooking for 30 seconds or so. Do not burn!!!

Add the garlic to the soup, along with the parsley, salt, and pepper.
You can now serve your soup with shaved romano cheese on top, yummm


Unlike my recent pizza mishap, this soup and salad dinner, WAS DELICIOUS.
I would recommend this recipe to anyone and everyone. It was plenty filling because 
of the thickness and the amount of pasta. Definitely something I would have enjoyed 
when I was little too...

It didn't take long at all with the canned beans apposed to the raw ones, and I'd like to think that
it was fairly healthy for you... no huge sources of fat, except for the olive oil, but thats whatever ;)

Oh and this random photo on the bottom is my new truffle infused olive oil! I had to get this little
bottle for a number of reasons; One, I have never really tried truffle oil before, except at a restaurant
on top of popcorn chicken and popcorn with white cheddar. So it was pretty masked.
The other reason being that the larger bottle of pure truffle oil (not that much larger) was
3 times the price... yeah not for me in this point of my life :)

It says on the bottle that this oil is especially good on risotto... I smell a new recipe coming...

Hope you enjoy the food! 


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