Many-Greens Bean Stew
A Tuscan weed soup rebuilt from dried vegetables and a bag of beans.
- calories
- 610
- weight
- 5 oz
- cal / oz
- 122
- protein
- 24 g
- serves
- 2, scales
- prep
- 5 min
- cook
- 20 min
- total time
- 25 min
- water
- 600 ml boiled
- cost
- $
Calorie and protein figures are my own estimates, good enough for planning a food bag and not meant as precise nutrition data.
- Dinner
- Canister stove
- Liquid fuel
- Campfire coals
- Backpacking
- Basecamp
- Car camping
- Vegetarian
- Vegan
- Dairy free
- Nut free
- One pot
- Dehydrate ahead
- Shelf stable
- Basic
Ingredients
| Dried mixed greens | 1 cup, packed loose | kale, spinach, chard, nettle, dandelion — the more kinds the better |
|---|---|---|
| Instant cannellini bean flakes or dried small white beans | 1 cup flakes, or 3/4 cup precooked-and-dried beans | |
| Dried diced onion | 2 tbsp | |
| Dried diced carrot | 2 tbsp | |
| Dried diced celery | 1 tbsp | |
| Garlic granules | 1 tsp | |
| Vegetable bouillon | 2 cubes or 2 tsp paste | |
| Olive oil | 2 tbsp | dropper bottle |
| Salt and cracked black pepper | to taste | |
| Polenta or instant corn grits | 1/2 cup | optional, for the cakes |
Method
- Bring 600 ml of water to a boil. Drop in the bouillon, onion, carrot, celery, and garlic.
- Simmer five minutes with the lid on. The root vegetables need the head start; the greens do not.
- Add the dried greens and the beans. Simmer another ten to fifteen minutes, stirring often so the bean flakes do not catch on the bottom.
- Pull it off the heat and let it sit five minutes covered. It thickens as it rests.
- Pour the oil over the top, then salt and pepper. Do not add the oil earlier — heat flattens it.
- For the corn cakes: stir the polenta into 1 cup of boiling water, cook until stiff, spread it flat in a greased pan lid and crisp both sides over low heat.
The original is a Tuscan poverty dish: thirty-odd wild plants picked in spring, simmered with beans, eaten with a flat corn cake. The point was never a specific green. It was volume and variety — a lot of different plants doing together what none of them does alone. That principle carries to a dehydrator perfectly, because dried greens weigh almost nothing and rehydrate in minutes.
The beans are the structural piece. Bean flakes save you an hour of fuel over dried beans and thicken the pot into stew instead of leaving a bowl of green water. Fresh vegetables, stock, and cured pork all became shelf-stable stand-ins here: dried mirepoix, a bouillon cube, and a splash of oil at the end that does the job the pork fat used to.
Packing
Greens, beans, and vegetables go in one bag; bouillon and garlic in another so you can season by taste. Oil rides in its own bottle, upright, inside a ziplock.
Variations
- A stick of dried salami or crumbled bacon bits, added with the greens, turns it into the pork version. Drop the vegan and vegetarian tags if you do.
- Any dried wild greens you gathered and dried at home work here. Nettle and lamb's quarters dry particularly well.
- Skip the polenta cakes and eat it with a hard roll if you are counting fuel.
https://foragerchef.com/la-minestrella-italian-stew-of-many-greens