White Bean, Sausage, and Vegetable Soup

I celebrated the impending expiration of my Cooks Illustrated subscription by actually preparing something from the magazine. Usually I just skim the articles, think "Hmm, if I ever want to make classic American lasagna, I guess I'll read this more carefully," and add the issue to the stack on the back of the toilet. Like any magazine, the first few issues were exciting, after which they quickly got old, because as it turns out I don't really cook things like mashed potatoes and yellow cake.

This recipe was part of an extended discourse on cooking the perfect white beans. I tried their method, which involved soaking the beans in salted water, but detected no difference from my usual bean soaking (or, often, not-soaking) methods. And, needless to say, I changed the soup recipe a bit. You could make a perfectly wonderful version without reading the article, simply by compiling the following into a soup using normal methods of soup compilation: a pound of soaked white beans; a pound of sausage; onions, carrots, turnips, and celery; water; a pound of diced tomatoes; fresh sage, fresh rosemary, bay leaves, and lots of black pepper.