Early CSA Overload

Our CSA farm started with a bang this season. As always, the first few weeks are mostly lettuce and greens, herbs, spring onions and garlic scapes. We live on main course salads during June, trying to keep up with the produce we get every week.

When Monday rolled around this week I happened to come across a wonderful article by Anna Thomas in the latest issue of Yoga Journal about her book Love Soup and including a few recipes. I do love soup but I mostly make it in the fall and winter when a fragrant pot bubbling on the back of the stove warms the house and the soul. When I think of summer soups I think of cool gazpacho or Deborah Madison's Zucchini-Cilantro Soup, a favorite I often freeze during the zucchini abundance of July for a taste of summer in January.

So here's my idol Anna Thomas with three beautiful summery soups and one of them addresses both the challenge of Monday Beans and our CSA overload. To make it a perfect choice, Drew and Ericka brought some fresh oregano from their garden. I adjusted the recipe from the original based on what we actually had and on our preferences.

Butter Bean and Summer Vegetable Soup

1 cup dried giant lima beans

1 tsp. salt
2 onions
1 red bell pepper (I had an orange one)
1-1/2 lbs ripe tomatoes
6 oz. green beans
8 oz. summer squash
6 oz. spinach
2 garlic scapes, chopped
1 qt. light vegetable broth
1/3 cup fresh basil, chopped
1 Tbsp. fresh oregano
juice of half a lemon

Cook the beans in 7 cups of water until tender, then add the teaspoon of salt. Set aside, reserving the cooking liquid.

Saute the onions in olive oil over medium heat until caramelized. Add the garlic scapes and continue cooking for a few more minutes. Char the pepper either on a gas burner, a grill or a broiler. Let it cool, then peel, seed and chop.

Dice the summer squash; trim the green beans and cut in 1" pieces. Toss together with a little olive oil and roast in a 400 degree oven until lightly browned, turning a few times during cooking. Wash and trim the spinach and coarsely chop. Skin and chop the tomatoes. I used a box of chopped tomatoes because we don't get fresh ones around here until nearly August.

In a large pot combine the broth, the beans and tomatoes, all of the vegetables and the herbs. Add bean cooking liquid if necessary to bring to soup to the desired consistency. Cook for 20-30 minutes, then add the lemon juice and freshly ground black pepper. Taste for salt. Anna Thomas recommends a swirl of olive oil on top. I left that out because I'm dieting and don't need the extra calories. I don't think the soup suffered for it.

Still with the flu

Believe it or not I'm still not over the lingering flu, and because of that, tonight's beans will be the comfort food I crave when I'm sick -- simple Indian dal. For this I'm relying on my personal cooking goddess, Anna Thomas, author of The Vegetarian Epicure Books One and Two, The New Vegetarian Epicure, and the newer Love Soup.

I became vegetarian sometime in 1976 and struggled with how to cook without meat for a few years. I had some fairly radical input from friends who were macrobiotic, and experimented with unusual ingredients that were hard to find at the time. What I found challenging was putting food on the table that was both meatless and hearty without being overly dairy-laden. I was raised on meat and potatoes and I wasn't ready to live a life of salads.

Enter Anna Thomas, who proved that meatless cooking can be hearty and flavorful.. Many of her foods taste like they might be heirloom dishes handed down through generations, largely because she honors her Polish heritage even as she explores other cuisines. Book Two includes a chapter of Indian recipes and I admit they were the first Indian foods I ever ate. I think I made every one of those recipes, then went on to learn some more authentic Indian cooking, but the simple Dal on page 310 became an instant household favorite. During college I would make a batch and take it to school for lunch. Through the years it's been my go-to easy comfort food, especially when a head cold or upper respiratory infection calls for something spicy and sinus-clearing that doesn't require slaving over a hot stove all day. 

The rice accompaniment on page 311 is another Anna Thomas favorite, Plain Pilaf. It's an easy, fragrant rice flavored with green peas, almonds, cardamon, cinnamon and raisins. Together, the rice and lentils constitute a vegetarian meal we categorize in this house as "brown and lumpy," but it's so delicious and comforting that we don't care what it looks like.

Thanks, Anna Thomas!