Kale, Potato, and White Bean Soup II: An Actual Recipe

I've made this soup several times since I first posted about it, so I thought I'd post the recipe. It's easy, quick for a hearty soup, and healthy (especially if, like me, you think a little bit of pork fat will probably be found someday to have secret health benefits).

Today a friend brought me three bunches of collards from her father's winter garden. The first bunch I cooked quite plainly in olive oil and seasoned with salt, dried red pepper, and vinegar, but perhaps another bunch will make its way into this soup.

In a Dutch oven, cook 4 strips of meaty bacon cut into smaller squares with scissors. Remove and drain on paper towels. Pour off all but 1 tablespoon of bacon fat.

Add 1 tablespoon olive oil. Saute 1 or 2 chopped onions until translucent.

Add 1/2 cup white wine or 1/4 cup vermouth, scraping up any browned onion and bacon bits.

Add and bring to simmer:
-2 potatoes, cubed
-1 large can cannellini beans, with goo
-a few big sprigs fresh thyme
-2 bay leaves
-chicken stock to cover (stock from a smoked turkey is also perfect)
-salt and pepper

When soup is simmering, add bit by bit, stirring as it cooks down:
-1 medium bunch kale, collards, or other greens, sliced

Simmer for 30 to 45 minutes, until soup is thick and whitened. Stir in 1 teaspoon lemon zest. Add bacon back in and serve.

Kale, Mushrooms, and Bacon over Polenta Taragna

Last night I made this, which is easily one of the best things I've eaten this year -- much more than the sum of its parts. The lemon zest pulls the dish together in surprising ways.

Some minor modifications: I used much less thyme, because our thyme plant is dry and stunted. I used two cloves of garlic, not one. I poured off all but one tablespoon of the bacon grease before adding the olive oil. And I used polenta taragna, which is a combination of ground buckwheat and corn, instead of regular polenta. I finished the polenta with a small bit of half and half -- cheese seemed too rich.

Best of all, this dinner helped me get over the disaster earlier this week in which I roasted some buttercup squash and made a beautiful soup, only to find that it tasted like feet. It was irremediable. The squash had some sort of moldy rot, invisible to the eye, that had completely saturated the soup with strong funk. We ate grilled cheese sandwiches for dinner.

Kale has redeemed me. I love greens with all my heart.

Tomato Gravy II: A Recipe

Tomato gravy is one of those Southern foods for which there are hundreds of different recipes. I, of course, believe Lawson's recipe is the best. It's how he won over my parents, after all.

It's a simple recipe, but it requires lots of fresh tomatoes in season, and they're supposed to be peeled. I suppose one could make it with canned tomatoes, but since the fresh, bright tomato flavor is the whole point, I would advise against it.

With so few seasonings, the tomato flavor is brassy and acidic and not sophisticated at all, but it's wonderful.

This recipe serves 6 to 8 people.

Saute until crispy but not too brown:

- 1 package bacon

Drain on paper towels and set aside. Pour out all but 2 or tablespoons of the bacon fat, if there is extra. Saute:

- 2 onions, preferably Vidalia, diced

Add and simmer until slightly reduced and thickened, about 20 minutes:

- Several pounds of fresh tomatoes (~10 medium?), peeled, seeded, and chopped

Add salt and pepper to taste. Crumble the bacon and add it to the sauce. Serve over grits, garnished with parsley if you like. A fried egg on top is good. Sauteed shrimp are good. If you wanted to be really South Carolinian, you could top it with a thin fried pork chop.

Breakfast of Champions

Here's my favorite breakfast, made by Lawson: Grits with Tomato Gravy. The gravy contains bacon, onions, and tomatoes. Lawson uses coarse grits, and accompanies each serving with a fried egg.

B-T-no-L

Back in 2002 and 2003, all through my gradual unvegetarianing, the Forces of Meat had one weapon more potent than any other. That weapon was bacon, and specifically bacon in combination with fresh tomatoes. Once Lawson had made me my first bacon-tomato sandwich, it was all over.

Here's how he makes one:

- 2 slices storebought multigrain bread
- thin layer on each slice of medium-fat mayonnaise (I find the super-lowfat mayo wretched, and neither of us wants to eat the full-fat stuff 3 times a week all summer)
- one small or 1/2 large real summer tomato. Really, there's no use at all making a bacon-tomato sandwich with pale grocery store tomatoes. You need actual tomatoes grown outside in the sun. Gardens are good. The farmer's market is good. Cut the tomato up in thick slices.
- 3 slices thick-cut bacon, cooked. It's better (crispier and more even) in a pan, but sometimes we use the microwave.

That's all. I love lettuce, but lettuce is totally unnecessary here.

Hangover Breakfast

The day after Lawson and I threw a party at which we drank a lot of beer, we ate this restorative breakfast.

The omelet contained cheese and chives. And bacon is sometimes extremely necessary.