Rosemary white bean soup

Tonight was a cold, wet night, so I made rosemary white bean soup from The Barefoot Contessa Cookbook. This is not my favorite Ina Garten cookbook, but it is still a solid source of tasty ideas and recipes.

You start by sauteeing onions and garlic, then tossing in white beans, chicken stock, a twig of rosemary, and a bay leaf.


That's pretty much it, as it is a very simple soup. Then you blend it together coarsely and serve hot! (We ate ours with some rye bread from yesterday.)


Unfortunately, the soup was a bit thin because I used a pound of canned cannellini beans rather than a pound of dried cannellini beans. (You're supposed to soak them for six hours before you do the soup.) Whoops! Obviously a pound of dried beans turns into much more than a pound of canned ones. Thus, the soup was a little thin, more like a consomme, but it was still tasty.

I tried adding another can of beans, but it just wasn't enough to get the really thick consistency shown in her cookbook photograph. I guess next time I should get over my fear of dried beans and just go for it. (I put my trust in Ina.)