The Summer of Frugal and Farty

All my life I've been kinda poor. I don't mean to trivialize the plight of those who can't afford to eat or go to school, so I should clarify: I am that "anything-over-$40-is-a-major-purchase" kind of poor. Yes, I splurge on some nice ingredients from time to time, but the majority of my meals are cooked on the cheap in order to fortify my beer and cat kibbles budget. This summer marks the very first which will be spent taking courses, meaning that I've got to become extra cheap as a consequence of soon being extra poor.

I first started cooking this particular frugal concoction when Terra Breads switched their daily soup schedule around, changing my once cherished tuscan bean soup Tuesdays to Wednesdays. You should all know that I deal rather poorly with trivial, unexpected change. Altering my own schedule of cafe patronage is just needlessly not-doable thanks to my stupid compulsions, so I started making my own white bean soup in an effort to cope with lunchtime uncertainty.

Creamy White Bean Soup

-6 large cloves of garlic
-4 shallots
-4 cups chicken stock
-1 greedy handful of basil
-8-12 leaves of fresh sage
-4 cups of cooked cannelini beans
(approx. 2 cans or 1 1/2 cups dry:
see addendum below post)
-2 tbsp olive oil
-1/3 cup heavy cream
-salt+pepper

Start by peeling and roughly chopping the shallots and garlic. Truth be told, I don't even bother chopping up the garlic, and usually resort to just smashing the cloves open with the side of a large knife. Place a sizeable pot over medium-high heat and cook your shallots, garlic, and sage leaves (you can just leave them whole) in the olive oil for a couple of minutes. You don't really want to heavily carmelize anything, just soften the stuff until your shallots turn translucent. Add in your beans and chicken stock, cover the pot and simmer over medium heat for about 20 minutes or until the garlic cloves are smushable. I would strongly recommend either reducing 5 cups of stock into 4 to concentrate the flavor or fortifying your stock with some kind of natural stock base product prior to use in this recipe. I only say this because the beans will soak up a lot of the flavor once pureed.
Turn off the heat, roughly chop your basil and toss it into the mix. Assemble your weapon of choice (I like using an immersion blender to minimize mess) and proceed to buzz the crap out of your proto-soup until it is creamy and flecked with little green herb bits. Pour in the cream and season with salt+pepper to taste. I like my soup on the thicker side, but you can always dilute the stuff with more stock if you'd rather it be thinner.

This dish is best served while sitting curbside, lamenting the tribulations of student life whist warming your hands atop a garbage can fire. In between your swigs of listerine be sure to nurse your salvaged cigarette, stroke the pet rat in your jacket pocket, and mumble "life....she is shit...."
If you aren't quite as melodramatic as I am, you could try it with a little extra fresh basil, a crisped pancetta slice, and olive oil drizzled atop your tasty batch of cheapness.

Addendum:
You can always use canned beans for convenience, but it's waaaayyyy cheaper to just cook your own. Start by soaking about 1 1/2 cups of dry cannelini beans (white kidney beans...whatever you want to call them) overnight in ample cold water. Drain them the next day, and then boil in plenty of fresh water for about an hour or until they are soft. DO NOT BOIL THEM WITH SALT!!!!! This will keep them from getting completely tender, resulting in weird grainy legumes. Don't ask why because I don't know, just trust me on this one, okay? Once they're tender you can drain them of excess water and they're ready to use in the soup or whatever else you have planned.