The first few days home in San Francisco were windy and cold, I’ve never lived in this city without the protection of a hillside I suppose. Our gorgeous classic SF apartment has no heat, of course. I predict a soup filled fall & winter, which will be great considering the dozens if not hundreds of soup recipes in my “to try” binder, and the fantastic cheap grocer down the street (a weeks worth of veggies for $6, puts the farmers’ market to shame).

That first week was spent finishing off the produce my parents had brought up from their garden though. They had left a promiscuous squash - big like a carving pumpkin but with pale green and yellow stripes, that had probably grown past it’s prime. I found it flavourless in a polenta dish, and thought that this soup would be a fantastic way to use the rest up. The richness of the yam & the heat of the curry powder and jalapeno kicked up the flavour, and the Delia Day inspired seed bread served as a perfect complement to the creamy soup. You’ll want to bake the bread ahead of time.

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I saw these gorgeous purple speckled beans at the farmer’s market last week and had to try them. The vendor said they were Dragon Tongue beans and that just made them even more appealing. I bought a pound and researched them when I got home, not much came up - I learned that they taste like a spicier version of the more common green bean, and I was disappointed to read that they lose their purple flecks when cooked.

I decided to make a crunchy butter to cook them in with ingredients I had on hand - a shallot, a handful of almonds, and a bit of lemon juice.

The citrus kept the taste light and allowed the subtle spiciness of the beans to come through. I was pleasantly surprised to see that while the pods did in fact lose their unique color with cooking, the individual beans remained purple, making a visually unique and delicious side dish..

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I made good use of some of the carrots from the massive Costco bag that we keep buying because it’s cheaper than buying the amount of carrots that we would actually generally choose to eat with this carrot salad adapted from the Vegetarian Times. In this case, adapted means that I couldn’t see why I shouldn’t double the amount of nuts & cheese! This simple salad makes a surprisingly flavorful lunch.I feel that the figs could be easily omitted, they mainly add a textural difference, the salad could easily stand on it’s own without them.

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