Greens and Beans with Pan Roasted Cherry Tomatoes

Last night's dinner, greens and beans, was really good. Carey loves this kind of rustic Italian fare as much as I do so meals like this are always a hit at our house.

In keeping with the focus on healthy eating, every component of the dish started in its rawest form. The broth is homemade (from a collection of veg scraps and a random chicken thigh/leg that I found when cleaning out the freezer). The beans were purchased dry in bulk from Penn Mac. For the first time I used both kale and escarole, both were picked up from last weekend's raid of Stan's Market. I finished the dish with some cherry tomatoes that I roasted in a pan with some olive oil, salt and pepper and topped it all with shaved Pecorino Romano, also from Penn Mac.

A quick run-down of how I made it:

• Sautee chopped onion in extra virgin olive oil with salt, pepper and a few bay leaves
• After onion is translucent, add garlic
• When garlic is fragrant, add a couple of glugs of dry white wine
• Allow the wine to cook for a few minutes to burn some of the alcohol flavor away and add tomato juice, cook for a few minutes
• Add hot broth and bring to a simmer
• Taste the broth mixture and season as necessary
• Add beans, cook until you feel like they are starting to become tender
• Fold kale into the broth, be careful not to break the beans up too much
• When the kale starts to become tender, add the escarole
• Cook until the beans and greens are tender but not mushy
• In a separate heated sautee pan, add olive oil
• Throw the cherry tomatoes into sautee pan and salt and pepper to taste
• Keep moving the tomatoes around in the pan until they are almost broken down
• Dish, top with the tomatoes and some good, dry cheese (Romano or Parmigiana).

"Food is our common ground, a universal experience" -James Beard