White Bean Soup (Recipe)

Okay, my ducks, I know I have a tonne of catching up to do – T is for Trance (2013 version), plus a New Moon post and, by the end of this week, a “U is for” PBP13 post as well – but I’ve got enough on my plate this week that I’m saving the Deep Thoughts posts for (urk) after Thanks Giving weekend.
Bear with me.

This here is just a quick recipe for a hearty home-food soup that you can make in a slow-cooker or on the stove (depending on how much time you have and whether or not you need to leave the house).
 
It’s a bit of a wonky cross between “Tuscan White Bean Soup” and some kind of vegetable-centric chowder.
Here’s how it goes:
 
INGREDIENTS
1 tin of white beans (I used white kidney beans), well rinsed and drained
1-2 C leftover steamed buttercup (or other Winter) squash
2 medium-sized white potatoes, peeled and rough-chopped
Half a white turnip[1], diced
2-3 parsley roots[1], diced
1 large-ish yellow cooking onion, roughly chopped
2 cloves of garlic (or more!), roughly chopped
3 tbsp whole (uncooked) amaranth seed
 
2 C duck stock (use veggie stock for a vegetarian version)
1 C milk
1/4 C whipping cream (unwhipped)
2 tsp dried sage
1 tsp prepared mustard
1/4 tsp each: salt, ground nutmeg
 
 
DIRECTIONS
 
1) Combine all ingredients in a slow-cooker and cook on high (or low, depending on time) until everything is falling apart.
 
2) Purree using an imersion blender if you want a really smooth “pottage” type soup to serve with thick slices of bread. If you’d rather have a chunky, chowder-like soup, then skip the purreeing part.
 
3) Serve with thick slices of bread (or whatever).
 
 
And there you have it. It’s easy. It does require a bunch of chopping, but that can be avoided by choosing things like “pre-diced turnip” and going with, like, one medium-sized parsnip rather than a bunch of (much skinnier) parsley roots.
 
Normally, fyi, I would use 5-6 cloves of garlic, rather than just two. But two was what I had in my fridge (I didn’t feel like breaking open another bulb) so I went with that. Also, I suspect that throwing (squeezing) an entire bulb of roasted garlic into this mix, just before purreeing it all would be just utterly fantastic. As a suggestion. 😉
 
 
Anyway. That’s where things are at right now. I have coffee (and cheese and chocolate and bread) to buy, and a costume to finish beading. And a lesson plan to finish. So I need to go.
 
 
TTFN,
Meliad the Birch Maiden.
 
 
[1] Courtesy of that garden I got to harvest, same with the parsley roots. THe turnip was rather on the wormy side, so I only used the salvageable bits.