Autumn Harvest Soup and Green Beans

We got a bunch of kale in our latest CSA box. I thought about making the recipe my friend Lisa used a few weeks ago for a cookout. But, I thought I'd see what the vegan cookbook (Clean Food) I have had as far as kale dishes. I found a few recipes, but this one sounded tasty.

Here is the recipe for Autumn Harvest Soup

-4 dried shiitake mushrooms (I couldn't find shiitake mushrooms, so I used crimini mushrooms and just used the entire package)

-6 cups water

-2 tbs. olive oil

-1 large onion, diced

-3 garlic cloves, minced

-1 tbs. fresh ginger, grated

-3 carrots, diced

-4 cups chopped kale or collard greens (I probably had 2 cups kale, and it was more than enough)

-2 cups cooked cannellini beans

-1/4 cup mirin (the bottle of mirin we got at Outpost for $10 was worth it. The flavor is outstanding!)

-splash of tamari

-splash of apple cider vinegar

-4-5 dashes toasted sesame oil

-freshly ground black pepper

Place dried mushrooms in medium pot with 6 cups water. Bring to boil, then reduce heat and simmer 15 minutes. Remove from heat and set aside to cool slightly. When mushrooms are soft, remove from broth and cut off and discard stems. Dice mushrooms and place back in pot with broth.

In large pot over medium heat, saute onion, garlic and ginger in oil 3 minutes. Add carrots and saute 3 minutes. Add kale or collard greens, beans and mirin and saute until greens are deep green and tender.

Pour broth and mushrooms into pot with kale, add tamari and vinegar and simmer 5-7 minutes. Season to taste with sesame oil and pepper.

The little story at the top of the page suggests serving the soup with brown rice or soba noodles for "those with a bigger appetite," which is obviously Nate and me! We had some soba noodles in the cupboard so I just made those We put the noodles at the bottom of the bowl and topped with soup.

The soup was OK, but needed something extra. I hadn't put in any salt while I was cooking, and I should have. So we both added some salt to ours, plus a few dashes of soy sauce and Sriracha.

Now, on the other hand, the green beans we made for a side dish were delicious! I had seen a recipe in a New York Times food article earlier this week, and printed it off knowing we had some beans from our CSA box to use up.

Here is that recipe. We followed the recipe pretty much exactly, except that we used 1/2 teas. of each garlic powder and ginger, since we didn't have fresh ginger, and, frankly, I didn't feel like chopping more garlic!

The beans were outstanding. We were thinking of what else we could make with the sauce. Any kind of stir fry would be good with the sauce.