Prairie Fare: Unlikely Leftovers

Serendipity. When it happens in cooking, it’s been my experience that leftovers are usually involved. Case in point: Think the Waldorf salad was planned? Maybe. Maybe not. According to the Epicurious food dictionary ( http://www.epicurious.com/ ), this salad, created at New York's Waldorf-Astoria Hotel in the 1890s, originally contained only apples, celery and mayonnaise. Chopped walnuts became an integral component later.

I’m betting that the chef at the Waldorf-Astoria back then, for some reason, had an overabundance of apples and celery. Maybe it was during the holiday season, and restaurant patrons weren’t gobbling down as much stuffing as the kitchen staff had expected. Back then, the restaurant probably made its own mayonnaise, and eggs and oil were no doubt inexpensive, compared to the apples and celery. So the thinking, perhaps based on leftovers of Victorian frugality itself, might have gone something like this: "Let us make mayonnaise so as to hastily dispatch these wanning fruits and vegetables."

And then there’s the issue of adding the walnuts to a Waldorf salad--later. Why not do so from the get-go? The walnuts probably came later for the same reason. Perhaps another chef had an unanticipated abundance of nuts because the restaurant’s clientele didn’t partake of as much plum pudding (perhaps) as the plan called for.

The moral of my speculation is this: You just never know what magic can spring from leftovers. On the other hand, most of the ingredients in leftover make-overs would have probably ended up in the garbage can anyway, so what’s the harm if a food experiment goes awry?

The recipe that follows is quite unusual. If you love baked beans, as I do, you may wonder why you never thought of this idea before. If your affection for baked beans is more mercurial, you may be thinking something else; some may be wondering about the origin of certain cliches, such as "Waste not, want not." Especially the "want not" part.

Baked Bean Soup
(Adapted from a recipe appearing in "The Original 1896 Fanny Farmer Cook Book")
Yield: 8 servings

Ingredients:
3 cups cold baked beans
6 cups water
1/2 cup each--chopped onions and celery
2 tablespoons butter or margarine
2 tablespoons all-purpose flour
1 1/2 cups stewed tomatoes
1 tablespoon chili sauce
salt and black pepper to taste

Procedure:
Combine the beans, water, onions and celery in a 3-quart saucepan and simmer for 30 minutes. While bean mixture simmers, melt butter in a small skillet and then add flour, stirring constantly for five minutes. Reduce heat to lowest setting to keep butter-flour mixture (roux) warm; stir occasionally until ready to use. After bean mixture has simmered for 30 minutes, place into blender and puree. Return mixture to saucepan and add stewed tomatoes and chili sauce. Bring soup to a simmer and season to taste with salt and pepper. Add roux to thicken, cook five to 10 minutes longer and serve.

What’s Your Take on This, Julie?

Baked Bean Soup could be made with canned or homemade baked beans of your choice, perhaps planned over from a recent barbecue. A serving (one-eighth of the recipe) contains about 195 calories and 8 grams of fat, depending on the type of baked beans you use.

If your days leave you harried and dining out is eating a chunk of your budget, stretch your resources with a little planning. Think of leftovers as "planned-overs" and they’ll seem less like "used food." Not only are planned-overs economical, they also can speed up meal preparation.

There is a food safety caution with planned-overs--even baked beans. In order for these foods to be safe, they need to be cooled quickly after they’re served the first time. That means whisking foods straight to the refrigerator--even if they’re still warm or even hot. Our modern refrigerators can handle temperature changes, while the ice in the ice boxes of yesteryear would have melted and the other food in the cooler, indeed, may have spoiled. Today cooling quickly is an important food safety measure that could safeguard your family from the flu-like symptoms (or worse) that accompany foodborne illness, which affects more than 76 million Americans annually.

Eating baked beans--fresh from the oven or planned over--as part of a diet low in fat could reduce your cholesterol levels. Baked beans are high in protein and soluble fiber, the type of fiber that has been shown to lower blood cholesterol. Dry edible beans also contain ample folic acid, a B vitamin that some research is showing to reduce risk of heart disease.

In one study, 13 young male students with normal cholesterol levels ate a can of baked beans in tomato sauce daily for two weeks, along with other foods of their choice. After two weeks off this "diet," 11 of the original 13 went on to eat a can of spaghetti in tomato sauce daily for two weeks, along with foods they chose (yes, the other two survived eating the beans but left the study for other reasons). Researchers found that eating beans and spaghetti reduced the amount of fat they ate daily and eating beans increased their protein and fiber intake. Initially, the students’ blood cholesterol levels dropped significantly, but their cholesterol levels didn’t change during the spaghetti phase.

Other researchers followed a similar method when they studied 20 men with moderately high cholesterol levels. They found that eating baked beans did not lower blood cholesterol levels unless the subjects also ate less fat in their diets.

So, what’s the verdict on baked beans? Much research has shown health benefits of eating cooked dry, edible beans, but eating them doesn’t necessarily make up for a fat-laden diet. Eating dry edible beans could stretch your budget without stretching your waistline. Adding some physical activity and skimming some fat from your menu by choosing more whole grains, fruits, vegetables, low-fat dairy products, beans and lean cuts of meat also could improve your health.

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Sources: Dean Hulse (701) 231-6136
Julie Garden-Robinson (701) 231-7187