Navy Bean and Greens Soup...Vegan

Happy First Day of Spring to you!!!! I love spring, it's my favorite time of year, seems to be filled with promises of rebirth, renewal of life, and all sorts of new vegetation growing, as well. So, with this being a time of renewal, I am now a non-smoker!!! I smoked my last Salem at 9:30 yesterday evening, Friday the 19th of March, 2009. So this morning was my first morning to wake up and not light a cigarette before heading into the bathroom. It was my first morning that I didn't smoke a cigarette with my coffee. How do I feel about this? Believe it or not, I'm excited, I really am. For about two to three weeks now, I've been psyching myself up to doing this, knowing that when I finished the last of the carton of Salems on my desk I was quitting, so when I smoked the last cigarette last night, that was it. This makes this springtime, this time of renewal, a time of renewal for me, as well, as I'm starting a whole new life here, a life in which my house will smell better, my clothes will smell better, my hair will smell better, I will breathe better, I won't cough as much(altho I honestly don't cough much now), I will feel better, and I will have a LOT more money in my pocket, because I won't be spending close to $200 a month any more, and watching my money literally go up in smoke. I've cleaned and put away two ashtrays, and thrown two others in the trash, so there aren't any ashtrays visible in my home now. I refuse to be enslaved any more, and I'm bustin' out, lol. So, even tho I'm excited about doing this, I do ask that you keep me in your thoughts, sending me good wishes, hopes, and prayers, ok? Thanks, I appreciate you.

I don't have a "real" recipe to post this week, as I didn't do a whole lot of cooking this past week. We were very, very busy at work, I worked six days instead of four or five, and I was just too tired to come home and cook. Either I ate the leftover "Beef" with Guinness Stew, or just sandwiches or toast or cereal. Which reminds me: I didn't tell you that when I made the stew, I did NOT use Guinness, for two reasons. First being that I just didn't want to go to the liquor store and pay for it, and the second being that I knew darned well that if I did get some, I'd drink it, thus ruining my 20+ years of sobriety, and none of it would end up in the stew, lol. So, I used seven cups of water with two veggie buillion cubes, and one cup of Japanese white rice cooking wine. It worked. It was just sooooo good. My wine is gone, I used the last of it last night, so I've got to get some more and make this stew again, it's that good.

Last night's supper was a soup of sorts: Navy Beans and Turnip Greens. I didn't use a recipe, altho there's more than likely one out there. Y'know, tho, once you've made a few soups, you pretty much get the general idea of what to do, and don't always need a recipe to make a soup. There are soups out there that I'd need a recipe for, some of the Thai soups, and of course the different peanut soups, that even tho I can't eat peanuts, I'm going to try one day, but using cashews. Anyway. In the morning, I put about a cup to a cup and a half of navy beans in a large pot with enough water to cover by an inch, brought 'em to a boil, and after boiling for a couple minutes, turned it off and let the beans sit there for about two hours. Then I drained them and rinsed them off. I wiped out the large pot, put it over medium heat with about one tablespoonful of olive oil, and added a small onion, diced, one stalk celery, diced, and one carrot(fairly large), diced, and let them fry in the oil for about five minutes. Then I put the beans on top of the veggies, added one large bay leaf, and poured eight cups of water over all of it, along with two veggie buillion cubes, and about a teaspoonful of tarragon leaves. Brought it all to a boil over high heat, added the last of the wine(about 1/4C, I think), and let it simmer over low heat for hours. And hours, sigh. The beans never really did soften up, altho after about four hours they were just soft enough to chew, sigh. OH! I almost forgot: before I brought it to a boil, before I put the wine in, I added half of a 16oz. bag of turnip greens w/turnips, then to the boil, the wine, etc.

Ok, here's my thoughts on this soup. I used too much tarragon. Either none at all or only about 1/2tsp. would be better. The beans needed to be a whole lot softer. I want my beans to be so soft they're about melting into the soup, lol. Possibly the salt in the buillion cubes had something to do with it, or, the beans may have just been very old, which means it will take more cooking to soften them up...which is what I'm doing right now. I also added some leftover spinach that was in the 'fridge, and it's all sitting on the stove simmering now, for either lunch or supper this evening. Tastewise, it was pretty good, even with too much tarragon, good enough that I'm willing to eat it again, and what I don't eat, I'll freeze. I'd like to try this with spinach, I think...or maybe even broccoli. Seems to me that white beans and broccoli would make a good soup, don't you think?

So, until next time, Happy Eating!!!!