Chicken, Beans and Greens Soup

Here's another recipe featuring beans. Turns chicken into a very tasty and filling dish. This is another one that can be frozen for later consumption. A staple in our household.

Chicken, Beans and Greens Soup
(8 servings)

1 tablespoon olive oil
2 cloves garlic, minced
½ cup each: coarsely chopped carrots, celery, onion
1 lb. skinned boned chicken breast cut in ½ in. chunks
8 cups chicken broth
1 can (14 ½ oz) Italian-style stewed tomatoes
1 cup ditalini or other small pasta
4 cups loosely packed chopped escarole (I use the whole head… what are you going to do with leftovers?…and it shrinks down to much less when cooked)
1 (19 oz) can white kidney beans (cannellini) undrained
¼ tsp. freshly ground pepper
freshly grated parmesan or asiago cheese for topping (optional)

1. Heat oil in large pot over medium heat. Saute garlic 1 minute, until fragrant. Add carrots, celery and onions, cook until nearly tender.
2. Add chicken and cook until opaque
3. Add broth and tomatoes, increase heat to high, cover and bring to a boil. Add pasta, reduce heat and simmer uncovered 10 minutes, stirring occasionally, until pasta is almost tender.
4. Stir in escarole and simmer uncovered 20 minutes until very tender. Add undrained beans, salt and pepper. Simmer 5 minutes longer until heated through.

Serve with grated cheese sprinkled on top, if desired.

Senate Bean Soup

When I worked in Barratt O'Hara's office on Capitol Hill in the '60s, he would ask us to bring him a carryout bowl of this soup almost every day. Well folks, the guy was the oldest congressman in the House...in his 80s...and I gotta say this stuff must have been a factor in his longevity (in addition to the "martunis" he drank every night). This is good using either smoked ham hocks or a leftover holiday ham bone. If you want to be really extravagant you can buy a ham bone from Honeybaked. They have a ton of meat on them, but don't come cheap. Make this and freeze it for sustenance on a cold winter evening.

U.S. Senate Navy Bean Soup
(serves 5 to 6)

1 lb. dried navy or Great Northern beans, rinsed and picked over
1 meaty ham bone or 2 smoked ham hocks
1 bay leaf
1 tsp. salt
2 C chopped onion
1 medium potato, peeled and chopped
2 carrots, chopped
2 stalks celery, chopped
2 cloves garlic, chopped
1 C tomato sauce
1 tsp. salt
¼ tsp. freshly ground black pepper

Soak beans in water to cover for 4 hrs. or overnight. Drain into a colander.

In a large soup pot, bring 10 cups of water to a boil. Add soaked beans, ham bone and bay leaf. Bring to a boil, reduce heat to low and cook, covered, until the beans are almost tender, about 1 ½ to 2 hours.

Remove as much meat as possible from the bone, cut into small pieces and return meat to the pot. Discard bone. Add the salt.

Add the chopped vegetables and cook at a gentle simmer until they are tender, about 30-40 minutes.

Add the tomato sauce and season with salt and pepper. Discard the bay leaf.

In a food processor or blender, process half the soup, pulsing to make a coarse-textured puree. Return to the pot, and adjust seasoning, if necessary.

Can be made 3 days ahead and refrigerated or frozen. Tastes even better the second or third day!

Scalloped potatoes

This recipe came out of a cookbook I got back in the '60s. The book got ruined in our house fire, but I kept it for years just for this recipe, with little bits of burned paper falling off each time. One day I decided to just save the recipe and toss the cookbook. Duh!

Sometimes I put pieces of leftover ham in it to make a complete meal. I'm thinking it would be a tasty way for Mike to enjoy the low-fat pork without it getting dry. I use skim milk, and you can cut back on the butter without sacrificing taste.

Scalloped Potatoes (serves 4)

4 C thinly sliced potatoes
3T flour
¼ C minced onion
½ t salt
¼ t pepper
1T butter
2C hot milk

Heat oven to 350. Arrange potatoes in 4 layers in 1 ½ qt casserole. Sprinkle the first 3 layers with 1T onion, 1T flour, salt & pepper. Sprinkle last layer with onion, salt & pepper, dot with butter. Pour hot milk over potatoes & bake uncovered 1 hr.

Yogurt Pancakes

I don't make pancakes any other way. These are just the best...and very low in fat (unless you slather them with butter). Adding pecans or fresh fruit as the pancakes cook makes for a great weekend breakfast. I use non-fat yogurt in place of the low-fat called for in the recipe. Sometimes you need a little extra milk.

Yogurt Pancakes

1 C. flour
1 T sugar
1 t baking powder
½ t baking soda
1 lg. egg
1 C skim milk
½ C plain low-fat yogurt

Combine dry ingredients. Beat egg lightly and add milk; stir into dry ingredients. Stir in yogurt. Pour ¼ cupful onto hot non-stick skillet for each pancake.

Dark Chocolate Sauce

This is a delicious sauce. The recipe comes from Penzey's Spice House. And that would be my recommendation as a source for the cocoa powder and vanilla. http://www.penzeys.com/


You can use this sauce for a variety of desserts. It is great as a dip for strawberries and cherries. Emillio's Tapas Bar in Chicago creates a dessert consisting of creampuff shells cut and filled with scoops of vanilla ice cream and covered with the sauce.

Dark Chocolate Sauce
1 Cup Cocoa (Get the cocoa from Penzey’s Spice House. I use the natural rather than the Dutch Process for most my recipes. The natural has more bite. The Dutch Process has a smoother taste.)
1.25 Cups Sugar
0.5 Cup Hot Water minus a Tablespoon or Two
0.5 Cup Half & Half minus a Tablespoon or Two
Pinch Salt
1 Teaspoon Double Strength Madagascar Vanilla

In a small heavy saucepan, blend cocoa with sugar. Stir in hot water and mix until smooth. Add half & half and salt. Heat to boiling; cook for 2 minutes. Wait till cool, and then stir in vanilla. Makes 2 cups of sauce.

Donna's Potato Salad

From Donna Michels, "The potato salad recipe as I have it written from forty years ago.' 

Dressing: Makes one cup. Beat or shake in a jar: 1/4 cup vinegar (or less, see notes) 3/4 cup oil 1TBs. sugar 1/4 tsp. pepper 1 tsp. salt 1 tsp. dry mustard 1 tsp. paprika clove of garlic Refrigerate. Shake often. Make a day ahead to give flavors chance to blend. 

Mix together cut, boiled potatoes (Cook in jackets till just pierceable.) Peel and add dressing while still warm. Mix in hard-boiled eggs, chopped celery, green onion. Refrigerate. When cooled, add Hellman's mayonnaise. Sprinkle with celery seed. 

NOTES: Oil: I obviously wasn't using olive oil when I first made this, or I wouldn't have refrigerated the dressing. Now I always use olive oil, leave the jar on the counter, and shake every time I walk by. Garlic: Originally, you just left the clove whole and took it out before mixing. But that wasn't enough garlic for me. Now I put a small clove through the press and hope it will disintegrate. Another reason to make early and shake often. Vinegar: I can't use this much of a sharp wine vinegar. I put in a couple TBs. at a time and taste. Sometimes I have even used Balsamic. Potatoes: About five pounds works with this amount of dressing, which seems oily at first, but gets completely absorbed. I use red potatoes ( whatever local grower I can find, not the tasteless name-brand ones) and don't remember ever boiling them. I steam them in the spaghetti cooker and always add a bay leaf to the water. Eggs: I put these in when the salad is the main dish, topped with feta and tomatoes and Kalamatas, a la Tarpon Springs. Onion: I was surprised to see that the recipe called for scallions. I always use either Vadalias or shallots. I guess it's a matter of taste. Which the whole recipe seems to be anyway. Celery Seed: I forgot to put this in when I made it for you guys. Mayo: This recipe proves I've been snooty about Hellman's for forty years. Again, I don't know the amount. I just add until it looks comfortable.

-- A note from Marsha Pedersen, 09-14-2022: Donna and I emailed back and forth on this topic. What you’ll note is that the amount of potatoes isn’t specified. We arrived at the conclusion that 2 pounds is too little for the amount of dressing and 3 pounds is too much. I loved one of her comments, that she would set the dressing in a little covered jar on the kitchen counter and give it a shake every time she walked past.

-- Mike Hinko replying to Marsha Pedersen, 09-14-2022: Thanks for narrowing down the amount of potatoes used for this recipe. Very helpful. I remember Donna shaking the dressing jar. I did too. Also, once the dressing was poured over the cooked potatoes we would stir the bowl once in a while. These two things are sometimes overlooked when making the recipe, but they are very important. The dressing ingredients need to mingle and the dressing needs to work its way into the potatoes. Shortcuts don't work. -- MH

-- A note from Mike Hinko, 09-15-2022: If you're interested in how this recipe evolved over the years you can read about it here: https://michaelhinko.blogspot.com/2022/09/potato-salad-evolution-of-recipe.html?m=1