Shallot Sage White Bean Soup

 I love making soup. Most of the time I just take a look at my food inventory and something evolves from there. White beans pureed are a great way to get a creamy soup without actual cream. Think of them as a cream subsitution that provides lots of protien and vitamins. You can make a fully blended soup with them or only blend part and leave the rest whole as I did here. Honestly one of my children were asking me to blend it and the other asked to keep it whole. I proposed that we do half and half and they went with it and so did I.  Here's what it looks like both ways.

Shallot Sage White Bean Soup

By: Kendra Hubbell

Ingredients

4 tbsp olive oil

1 red onion

1 large shallot bulb

4 carrots

1 leek

Sage bunch or 1 tbsp ground sage

½ - 1 tsp tarragon

½-1 cup white wine

White pepper and salt to taste

1 lb soaked white beans

1 box organic chicken or veggie broth

Directions:

Put olive oil in a medium to large soup pot.

Chop the onion and shallots and cook on medium to high heat.

Chop your carrots and leek and add them to your pot and cook until tender.

Add chopped or ground sage, tarragon, and white wine.

Add 1 lb. of white beans that have been rinsed and soaked in water in the refrigerator overnight.

Add the chicken broth and cook until it boils.

Reduce heat and simmer for 1 hour.

At this point you can choose if you want to keep the soup whole or blend it in your blender or Vitamix. My family requested a half and half approach. Carefully scoop a portion of the soup; I did about 2 cups, into your blender and blend until smooth. Transfer the blended soup back to your soup pot and stir. This leaves part of your soup whole and some blended for a creamy yet chunky soup. If you decide to blend all the soup simply repeat the blending process, transferring your soup to another container, until all the soup is blended.

Serve immediately topped with grated pecorino Romano.

Refrigerate any leftovers for 2 days then freeze or freeze immediately.

You can serve it with some bread (gluten free or other) and pecorino romano (sheeps cheese).