Greek Bean Soup

That food poisoning laid me low for longer than I'd like to admit. I may have pulled it together enough to write about Alexis's chili, but doing a lot of eating was another thing. In light of the fact that I spent the week breaking out into a sweat/pain after about one meagerly-sized meal/day, I wasn't much for cooking experiments.

However, time has finally done its good work and I'm finally feeling pretty reliably better. And as Josh's parents were in town visiting us for the weekend, it was about time I bust out the Greek Bean Soup.

Greek Bean Soup was the second recipe from Andy & Elizabeth, i.e., my best friend from college and his wife. At the time I tried their first recipe (aka Disgustingly Rich Brownies), she was pregnant with their first child, who has since arrived - William.

Someone must have told William he was going to get some soup

What with their living in Atlanta and my living in Los Angeles, it will undoubtedly be more time than I would like before I get to meet their little boy. But in the meantime, I can at least test my hand at his mommy's soup, which I have on good authority (Andy) that she still makes often.

Elizabeth's Greek Bean Soup is pretty simple, but requires some advance set up. That is to say, you get dry beans and have to soak them overnight before cooking time, and then cooking time is a couple of hours. I don't think I even knew that dry beans existed. I mean, don't they grow in a can? But it turns out they do exist, and I for one was actually excited to both find said 'dry beans' (easily findable in the ghetto grocery - much to my mother-in-law's surprise) and re-hydrate them. Perhaps my joy at this was improved by the fact that I'd been spending the better part of the week re-hydrating myself. Poetic symmetry and all that.

ANYHOOT, Thursday rolled around and my in-laws - driving cross country from Iowa to their winter nest in San Diego where Josh's sister and their grandkids live - were due in for a weekend visit. I dragged my still-not-100%-self into the kitchen and figured out how to soak the beans (Put beans in pot. Dump water in pot. Leave.).

By dinner time, Josh had gotten off work early, the house was clean, and Ginny and Stu were here and happy to be off the road. I started the soup process with Ginny's help, at which point I remembered that Ginny can't eat garlic or onions (unless she wanted to join me on the feeling like crap front). And that the soup called for garlic and onions. The peril of doing things when you're unwell - your brain stops working along with the rest of you.

Luckily, as I've said before, Ginny is a nutritionist, so she knows what can substitute for what. We went for half a giant onion (in lieu of the two the recipe called for) and some garlic salt (in lieu of the garlic cloves), called it good enough, and set it to boil for a couple of hours.

In the end, the soup was good, if a little bland for my taste, but I'm sure the greatly reduced onion/garlic content was partly responsible for that. As Andy says, the soup is good if you put a lot of feta in it, and I'm all for lots of feta. The Huntingtons, of course, liked it and they all ate it heartily - not only for dinner on Friday night, but again for leftovers on Saturday. Viva Greek Bean Soup and Viva Baby William!

Any excuse for feta is a good one if you ask me

William's Greek Bean Soup
1 lb dry beans (especially lima beans or navy beans)
2 onions - chopped* (or 1/2 of one because we dont' want Ginny to die)
2 stalks celery
3 carrots
2 cups canned tomatoes (or fresh, remove skins)
1/2 cup olive oil
3 quarts water
salt
1 tbsp of each: oregano, basil, parsley
4-5 bay leaves and several cloves of garlic (or some garlic salt, for the garlic-sensitive)

Go to store and wonder things like: Who uses dry beans? Why use dry beans instead of wet beans? Should the canned tomatoes be whole? Or diced? Where are my pants?

Soak beans overnight, or all day, since the bag says they should soak for a few hours, and a day will do that. I mean, darkness isn't an ingredient, right? Then chop veggies with the help of Ginny and boil everything gently for about 2+ hours, being the amazing wife who stays home to watch said pot and make sure the house doesn't catch fire while everyone else goes to catch the sunset at the Griffith Park Observatory. When served, add pieces of feta cheese. Be amazed that the small amount of onion and garlic salt does not appear to torment Ginny.

Elizabeth note: Very delicious and healthy! Enjoy!
Heather note: What? I ate something healthy?

*Chopping method: Dole out this task to Ginny. Score!