Winter Bean Soup

• 1 tablespoon butter or vegetable oil
• 1 small onion, or 1/4 large onion
• 1 new potato, sliced
• 2 cups broth, preferably meatybeef, lamb, duck, or goose
• A handful of Swiss chard or spinach leaves
• 1/4 cup cooked dried beans or lentils
• 4 or 5 slices cooked sausage, or as many as you wish
• Croutons, rubbed with garlic if you like, or a couple of slices French bread
• A sprinkling of Parmesan (optional)

1. Melt the butter in a small pot, and add the onion and potato.
2. Saute for a few minutes, and pour in the broth.
3. Simmer for 30 minutes, covered.
4. Add the greens during the last 5 minutes of cooking, as well as the dried beans.
5. Stir in the sausage at the end, and heat through.
6. Serve in a big soup bowl with croutons and some (optional) Parmesan floating on top.
7. If you dont have any sausage, use some meat scrapsleftover lamb or pork or dark poultry meat.
8. Instead of cooked dried beans, which you may not have stashed away, try fresh fava beans.
9. You have to shuck them and then peel off the skins of the beans, but youll only need about a dozen for this soup, so its not that hardanother advantage of cooking just for one.

butter, onion, new potato, broth, handful of swiss chard, beans, sausage, croutons, sprinkling of parmesan

Taken from www.epicurious.com/recipes/food/views/winter-bean-soup-378386 (may not work)