Barley and Cranberry Bean Soup with Kale

We didn't get a lot of snow last weekend, but enough to assemble a snow duck and enough to inspire a hearty winter soup.

I'd been wanting to try a barley and bean soup with our supplies from our Lonesome Whistle Farm CSA (heirloom purple barley and Vermont cranberry beans). I had a frozen ham bone and a cabbage from our Open Oak Farm CSA that I knew from experience would cook down into a rich broth.

I love the deep, smooth flavors of a slow cooked soup, but I thought it would be nice to contrast it with some bright, fresh greens. So to finish the soup, I sauteed some lacinato kale in olive oil with plenty of garlic and used this as a soup garnish with a light dusting of parmesan cheese, like our recent snowfall.

Barley and Cranberry Bean Soup with Kale

1 Tbsp butter
1/2 cup hulled barley
1 small onion, chopped
1 15 ounce can chopped tomatoes
8 cups water
1 small or 1/2 regular cabbage, chopped
1 ham bone or ham hock
2 carrots, peeled and chopped
4 celery stalks, trimmed and chopped
1 cup cranberry beans
salt to taste
1 Tbsp balsamic vinegar
8 leaves lacinato kale
3 cloves garlic, peeled and minced
2 Tbsp olive oil
freshly grated parmesan cheese for serving


1. Heat a Dutch oven or heavy soup pot over medium heat. Melt the butter and saute the barley grains for a couple of minutes until fragrant. Add the onion and saute until very soft. Add the chopped tomatoes and a generous pinch of salt and saute for about five minutes. Add the water, cabbage, and ham bone. Bring to a boil and then simmer on very low, mostly covered, for about 2 hours. 


2. Add the carrots, celery, and cranberry beans. Continue simmering on very low for another 2 hours. You could also cook the soup in a slow cooker on low for a total of about 6 hours, adding the carrots, celery, and beans after the first 2 hours.


3. When the beans and barley are soft but not mushy, finish the soup. Remove the ham bone or ham hock, shred the meat from the bone, and return the meat to the pot. Taste and add more salt as needed. Finish the soup with a drizzle of balsamic vinegar (about 1 Tbsp).


4. Shortly before serving the soup, prepare the garlicy kale topping. Cut the kale leaves from the center stem and slice them into 1/2 inch ribbons. Heat the olive oil in a saute pan and when it is hot, add the minced garlic. Saute for about one minute and then add the kale and a pinch of salt. Saute until the kale is just wilted, about five minutes. Transfer to a bowl.


5. Serve the hot soup with a generous spoonful of sauteed kale on top and a sprinkle of grated parmesan cheese.

Other recipes for locally grown beans

Bruna Bönor
Cranberry Beans and Collard Greens
Paprkia Chickpea, Delicata and Kale Salad

Pumpkin and Rio Zape Bean Soup

Vegetarian Bean Chili

Black Beans and Huevos Rancheros

Falafel and Grilled Zucchini

Lentil Caviar Salad with Poached Eggs

Coffee Braised Lamb Shanks and Arikara beans

Green Flageolet Bean and Tuna Salad

Creamy green flageolet beans

Dutch bullet bean soup with Indian spices

Arikara beans with tomatillo pork

Ireland Creek Annie Baked Beans

Flageolet bean salad with fennel, orange, and tapenade

Arikara beans with roasted fennel and peppers

Jacob's Cattle bean and ham stew

Calypso beans with ginger and black mustard seeds

Ireland Creek Annie bean bruschetta

Lemon and herb Dutch bullet beans

Minty green flageolet beans

Dutch bullet beans and roasted squash soup

Rio Zape beans with toasted chile sauce

Arikara bean gratin

Calypso bean and leek soup

Swedish Rye Knäckebröd

Every Christmas season we prepare a Swedish Smörgasbrod, a tradition from my husband's family. This year, with a fresh supply of rye flour from Lonesome Whistle Farm, I was inspired to make our own knäckebröd or rye crackers for our Swedish feast.

I found a wide variety of recipes for knäckebröd on the web, and put together a version with a buttermilk starter sweetened with honey and lightened with a bit of yeast. To make the round crackers, we shaped the dough into a log, sliced it into disks, and rolled them flat.

Then my son cut out the centers, which we read were for cooling the crackers on a wooden spoon,

and my daughter made a pattern of fork pricks designed for breaking the crackers into radial sections.

The spoon cooling process required some precarious balancing, but the final crackers were a delicious component of our Swedish Smörgasbord of:

Knäckebröd (rye crackers)

Fyllda ägg (stuffed eggs)

Köttbullar (Swedish meatballs)
Inlagd Sill (pickled herring)
Inlagda Gurkor (pickled cucumbers)

smoked salmon and smoked trout
Bruna Bönor (brown beans, delicious prepared with Lonesome Whistle Farm's cranberry beans. Cook beans in water until tender. Mix in salt to taste, 1 tsp mustard, 3 Tbsp molasses, and 3 Tbsp cider vinegar and simmer for another half hour for the flavors to meld.)

Swedish Rye Knäckebröd

1 cup buttermilk

3 Tbsp butter
1 Tbsp honey
1 tsp yeast
1 tsp salt
2 cup rye flour
1 cup whole wheat flour, and more for rolling out dough

1. In a glass measuring cup, microwave the butter until it melts. Add the buttermilk and microwave a little longer until the mixture is warm but not scalding. Stir in the honey and yeast. Let sit for about 5 minutes until frothy.

2. In a large mixing bowl, combine the salt and a cup of wheat flour. Pour in the milk mixture and stir to combine. Now stir in the rye flour in several stages until you have a firm dough. Gather together the dough and knead gently into ball. Put into an oiled bowl, cover, and let sit for at least an hour.

3. Preheat the oven to 425 degrees. On a floured surface, roll the dough into a cylinder and then cut into eight disks. Roll each disk into a thin circle. Use a shot glass or cookie cutter to cut out a hole in the center (you can bake the holes as little crackers). Transfer the disk to a parchment paper-covered baking sheet. Use a fork to prick all over including radial spokes along which the crackers can break.

4. Bake the crackers in batches for about ten minutes until they brown up along the edges. Cool on a wooden spoon threaded through the center holes.

Other recipes for locally grown grains

Barley Risotto with Grilled Vegetables

Buckwheat Blini

Buckwheat Crepes

Gluten-Free Waffles

Quinoa Salad with Roasted Beets and Kale

Swedish Rye Cookies

Teff Grain and Ricotta Pancakes with Apple Topping

Wheatberry Tabbouleh with Green Beans and Feta

Wheatberries with Snap Peas

Cranberry Beans and Collard Greens

I was excited that the first installment of this year's Lonesome Whistle Farm CSA included these heirloom Vermont cranberry beans, which I hadn't had a chance to sample last year. As a native New Englander, I wanted to honor these beans' heritage with a simple but enlightened preparation. 

We also had some collard leaves from our Open Oak Farm CSA, which seemed like the kind of substantial green that Alcott or Emerson would have espoused. I started a bean pot with some sauteed leeks and jalapeno, and then simmered the beans until just tender.

Then I sauteed sliced collard greens with plenty of garlic in a shallow pan, to which I added the beans and their liquid. Another twenty minutes on the stove simmered off most of the bean juice, melded the flavors, and rendered the greens silky but not too soft. These beans were a delicious accompaniment to roast ham for dinner, and the leftovers were even more scrumptious the next day topped with a fried egg in a New England take on huevos rancheros. 

Cranberry Beans and Collard Greens

2 cup cranberry beans, sorted, rinsed and soaked while you prepare the other ingredients

4 Tbsp olive oil (divided use)

1 large or 2 small leeks

1 jalapeno pepper

5 cups water

1 bunch collard greens

3 cloves garlic

salt and pepper to taste

1. Cut off the root and green part of the leeks, slice the white part lengthwise, and rinse thoroughly. slice lengthwise again and then cut into 1/4 inch slices. Seed and chop the jalapeno pepper finely.

2. Heat a Dutch oven and add 2 Tbsp olive oil. Over medium low heat, saute the leeks and jalapenos until they become nicely caramelized, about 6 minutes, but avoid letting them brown. 

3. Drain the beans and add to the pot along with 5 cups of water and a generous pinch of salt. If you like, you can presoak the beans for a longer period of time, but I find it unnecessary, especially with this newly dried beans. Bring the pot to a very gentle simmer and cook for about an hour (longer for older beans) with the lid cracked. Keep an eye on the liquid level. You want the beans to have some broth, but if they seem too soupy, simmer with the top off. Turn off the beans when they are just tender and add more salt and pepper as needed.

4. Rinse the collard greens, cut the center stem from the leaves, and chop them into 1/2 inch strips. Peel the garlic cloves and mince them.

5. Heat a large, shallow pan that can hold all of the beans. Add the remaining 2 Tbsp olive oil and briefly saute the garlic. Then add the collard greens and a generous pinch of salt and saute until they turn bright green and fragrant. Now add the beans and their liquid, mix, and let the collard greens simmer in the bean juices for about twenty minutes. Once the greens are the desired degree of tenderness and the beans have thickened, serve warm. These are delicious topped with a fried egg. 

Other recipes for heirloom beans

Pumpkin and Rio Zape Bean Soup

Coffee Braised Lamb Shanks and Arikara beans

Green Flageolet Bean and Tuna Salad

Creamy green flageolet beans

Dutch bullet bean soup with Indian spices

Arikara beans with tomatillo pork

Ireland Creek Annie Baked Beans

Flageolet bean salad with fennel, orange, and tapenade

Arikara beans with roasted fennel and peppers

Jacob's Cattle bean and ham stew

Calypso beans with ginger and black mustard seeds

Ireland Creek Annie bean bruschetta

Lemon and herb Dutch bullet beans

Minty green flageolet beans

Dutch bullet beans and roasted squash soup

Rio Zape beans with toasted chile sauce

Arikara bean gratin

Calypso bean and leek soup