Yogadad World

Lynn Rosetto Kasper is a food goddess. Her radio show The Splendid Table is one of the few food shows, radio or TV, that I make a point of listening to on a regular basis. She almost always has interesting guests and I often pick up a tip or two that I can put to use. In addition to the radio, she and cohort Sally Swift published The Splendid Table's How to Eat Supper a couple years ago. It's one of my favorite go-to cookbooks when I don't have a lot of time to cook. Yes, it's Saturday. I should have beaucoup amounts of time to putter around in the kitchen making a dish with a gazillion ingredients. But after a quick trip to Indianapolis this week and a late arrival home on Friday, I just wasn't up to a lot of cooking today. So this morning, I sat down with the Supper book and found this recipe.

Growing up, I wasn't exposed to a lot of beans. My mom would make chili with kidney beans, but that was just about it. And I never developed an appreciation for that cold bean salad that you almost always find at summer potlucks. Lately though, as I've come to appreciate lentils more, it was an easy jump to make to this recipe.

We ended up making this the main course, well, more like the only course. But it would make a nice side dish if you were grilling a piece of pork or baking or broiling a cut of beef.

What made this dish was the fresh rosemary and the slow frying of the garlic. Make sure that the garlic doesn't over cook. It's easy to do. Then you're going to lose some of the fragrance that makes this such a delightful supper. Don't skimp on the rosemary either and try to use dried from that little bottle that's been in your cupboard for a few weeks or months. You won't enjoy eating your meal nearly as much.

This cooks up very fast. Once you have your garlic and rosemary cleaned and cut, it only takes a few minutes to get this from stove to table.

For dessert, we had apple-rhubarb crisp with rhubarb fresh out of the garden.

Rhubarb is another one of those foods that I just didn't appreciate it when I was younger. Now that I'm advancing through middle age at an accelerating clip, I find that it's pretty darn enjoyable.

I didn't use Granny Smith apples as called for in the recipe. Instead I dug out a few Michigan delicious apples that had been in the crisper for a week or two. A little too mushy for eating but perfect for baking. Their sweetness was a nice counterpart to the tart rhubarb.

Enjoy.

Ingredients
Topping
1/2 slice coarse whole-grain bread, coarse ground in a food processor (2 generous tablespoons crumbs)
3 Tbl fresh-grated Parmigiano-Reggiano cheese
Generous 1/4 tsp fresh-ground black pepper

Salad
5 large garlic cloves crushed with 1/2 tsp salt and coarse chopped
1/4 c extra-virgin olive oil
1/2 tight packed Tbl fresh rosemary leaves, coarse chopped
2 15-oz can white beans (cannellini or Great Northern), drained & rinsed
1 large handful mixed salad greens
Additional salt & pepper, to taste

In a 12-inch skillet or saute pan over medium heat, toast the bread crumbs until lightly browned, stirring often. Transfer the crumbs to a small bowl to cool. When cooled, stir in the Parmigiano and pepper. Set aside

In the same pan, slowly warm the garlic in the olive oil over low heat for 30 secs to 1 minute. Stir in the rosemary, blending for another minute or so, taking care not to burn the garlic. It should be very fragrant & just beginning to soften.

Immediately add the beans and fold them in very gently. Turn the heat to medium. Heat the beans through, about 3 mins., occasionally lifting and turning them as they heat, as stirring will turn them to mush. Add the greens and gently move them around in the pan until they are slightly wilted, 30 secs to 1 min. Turn into a serving bowl, top with the bread-crumb mixture and season with salt and pepper.