stick to your bones good: White Bean Soup with Garlic and Parsley

who knew that such simple and plain ingredients could yield a soup such as this? i know the title doesn't seem very interesting but hey, what's a hungry student with minimal ingredients to do when faced with the minor problem of feeding herself? (in fact, i find myself wondering how tasty any of the recipes are going to be with plain names such as this one...) answer: flip through the book until she finds a recipe that uses what she already has on hand, of course!

like i mentioned in my Chick Pea Soup blog, i cooked up a pot of white beans while waiting for the chick peas to do their thing. the next day, i took the beans, boiled them (actually, i over boiled them and they turned into a semi-solid state of mush, but it actually worked in my favour this time round...) and got ready for another long long wait before a new pot of soup should magically appear on my stove top. nope, not this time round. with in 15 mins, the soup was ready to eat! incredible!

i admit that it took two tries to get the seasoning right (i guess i tend to under season out of the "no salt" policy that exists in my house) but a little more salt, fresh ground pepper, and most importantly, fresh parsley, was thrown in, magic really did happen. i mean, it took this soup from a state of "blah" to a state of... well, i think nikki's response says it all.

first time round, "it's good, but needs some more salt and pepper" (at this point, i hadn't added in the parsley yet). second time round (with the adjustments) she needed three times just to "make sure that everything was just right". sweet perfection.

because the soup was finished late at night, i covered it and put it into the fridge for consumption the next day. i guess that overnight, not only did the flavours come together more but so did the soup itself! serving myself was more that slapping down balls of off-white goop that dishing up a bowl of soup... :S i ended up having to dilute the soup with some hot water while warming because it was just too thick. granted that the recipe did say that you could serve this as a side dish to roast veal, i'd say that soup is meant to have at least sooooommmmeeee liquid....

at any rate, the soup was delicious and definitely filling. i was pleasantly surprised when, after 6 hours, dinner was just a distant thought. (i usually need to feed myself every 4 hours or so)

in conclusion, this soup is perfect for us students heading into exam period. it doesn't really need any work (aside from preplanning the soaking of the beans) and will keep us filled and fueled for our long hours in the library. on top of that, litteraly pennies to make. definitely a keeper.

and so my friends, the count is 17 down, 502 to go.