White Bean

Pair this with frosty glasses of lager.

Begin with chicken soup enriched with tiny pasta and fresh spinach leaves. Thick slices of country bread are perfect with the tuna salad, and tiramisù is the dessert of choice.

Chicory, a bitter leaf most commonly used in salads, mellows as it cooks.

The vegetables can be prepared ahead and finished up to the middle of step 3. Heat for 5 minutes before serving.

Make this at least one day and up to two days ahead for best flavor. This is a much simplified version of the classic smoked meat and bean cassoulet.

"Lidia's in Kansas City, Missouri, serves a rustic white bean and potato soup that would make a perfect meatless entrée for a winter evening," writes Deborah Johnson of Columbia, Missouri. "I order it every time I go there. Do you think chef Dan Swinney would part with his recipe?" Start this recipe a day ahead so that there's time for the beans to soak overnight.

Dry-cured country ham can be substituted for the hickory-smoked ham called for here.

Cheryl Zook of Ketchum, Idaho, writes: "After I graduated from college last fall, I spent a few months in Europe. By far, my favorite stop was Florence. I'll always remember the vegetable soup I had at Ristorante Mamma Gina near the Ponte Vecchio." This is almost as thick as a stew. If you prefer a thinner soup, simply add more vegetable stock. Because the beans need to soak overnight, begin preparation a day ahead.

Try this with ciabatta or whole wheat bread.

Offer thinly sliced serrano ham or prosciutto and bowls of stuffed olives and toasted almonds along with the beans.

Crusty bread and radicchio with creamy Italian dressing make nice sides. End with red grapes and anise-dusted sugar cookies.

This hearty soup makes delicious use of the flavorful 1/4-inch-thick rinds that remain after wedges of Parmesan have been grated away; they infuse the soup with a nice salty bite as it simmers.

My recipe was adapted from Julia Child's Mastering the Art of French Cooking. I've changed the meats (a lot) and the seasonings (a bit). I've also tinkered with cooking times and sequence.

Active time: 20 min Start to finish: 35 min

"When I finished graduate school, I thought I’d have more time for one of my hobbies, cooking," says Catherine Verilli of Silver Springs, Maryland. "But now I’m busy teaching, researching and singing professionally. With my Italian heritage, I like to emphasize flavor, and my schedule often demands speed. This pasta dish meets both requirements beautifully." Pass additional grated Parmesan at the table.

In place of the pasta commonly found in Italian bean soups we've used wheat berries — minimally processed whole grains — for the following recipe.

Succotash is a corn and bean dish introduced to the early settlers by Indians. The Yankees most likely used local cranberry beans, a kind of shell bean, but lima beans have become the preferred, readily available substitute. We've also added tomatoes for their bright color and fresh flavor, even though they probably did not enter the New England culinary mainstream until the nineteenth century.