I hope you and your families and friends had a wonderful holiday season!

With the controversial Healthcare Reform, the best thing we can do is to keep ourselves as healthy as possible. Heart attack is the number one cause of death in both women and men in the United States. We continue to get information from medical studies suppoting the use of HRT to reduce the risk of heart attack in women. The most recent study was published in the Journal of the American College of Cardiology, December 2009. The study showed that LDL, or bad cholesterol, rised during the year before andafter menopause. This is the time that levels of estrogen drop significantly in women not on HRT. Another recent study showed women who have a complete hysterectomy before menopause, and who are not placed on HRT, are at increased risk of premature heart attack. I always recommend you discuss the risks and benefits of any treatment with your physician.

  In The Kitchen With Dr. B. - 3 Bean Soup with Pasta Croutons

Now that winter is here, vegetable soups are one of my favorite foods as a little (or lot of) nip comes into the air. The idea for this recipe came from Food and Wine November 2009. This recipe requires a little chopping - watch your fingers (and toes) when working on this part of the recipe. A few years ago, I was chopping onions bare-footed, the knife flipped out of my hand and cut two of my toes, requiring stitches - the moral of that story is do not chop bare-footed. See below* for the rest of the story.

2 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil
3 slices lean bacon, finelly chopped
2 medium onions, finely chopped
1 large carrot, peeled and halfed lengthwise and sliced crosswise into thin half-rounds
3 celery ribs, thinly sliced crosswise
4 garlic cloves, thinly sliced crosswise
1 leek, cut in half lengthwise, washed, white and tender green parts thinly sliced crosswise
1/2 green cabbage, cut in half, cored and sliced into thin strips
1 14 ounce3 can diced tomatoes
1 cup dried balck-eyed peas
1 bay leaf, with 2 sprigs thyme, and 3 parsley sprigs tied with kitchen string together
1 15 ounce can dark red kidney beans, drained and rinsed
1 can garbanzo beans, drained and rinsed
3 ounces whole-wheat penne pasta
1/2 cupshredded basil
1/2 cup grated fresh Reggiano-Parmesean cheese (not the stuff out of the green can)

In a 6-quart pot, heat 1 tablespoon oil, saute' the bacon until lightly browned. If you want a vegetarian dish, omit the bacon and add another tablespoon of olive oil when cooking the vegetables. Add onion, carrot, celery, garilic and leek and cook until softened over moderate heat, about 10 minutes (do not brown). Season with sea salt and freshly ground pepper. Add the cabbage, cook for several minutes until moderately wilted. Add the tomatoes and cook a couple of minutes, continually stirring. Add the black-eyed peas and two quarts of water and bring to a boil. Place the herb mixture in the pot, cover and simmer for 45 minutes over low heat. May want to cook less depending on how crunchy you want the vegetables and whether or not you are planning to freeze the leftovers. Remove the herbs before serving.

Prepare the pasta croutons. Add the penne pasta to a pot of boiling salted water (add the salt after the water is boiling). Cook about 10 minutes, drain, and cool under cold water. Slice each penne pasta crosswise into 4 sections, and saute in a nonstick pan in a single layer with 1 tablespoon olive oil for about 5 minutes until slightly browned and crispy. Drain the pasta on paper towels.

Ladle the soup into bowls, stir about 1 tablespoon each basil and cheese into each bowl, and top with 1 tablespoon pasta (or to taste). Enjoy!

A couple of comments - one difference between professional chefs and everday cooks is the chefs are very compulsive about cutting veggies and other foods precisely so they will cook evenly, and the finished dish looks better. Another comment/hint - several years ago at a cooking class my wife and I were taking, we did a blind tasting of canned tomatoes, two well-known brands and the Piggly Wiggly brand. Our chef instructor said that the Piggly Wiggly brand consistently beat the others on taste and consistency. If it tastes good and costs less, sounds like a deal to me.

* The rest of the story - realizing I needed stitches, I drove to my office and managed to inject my 2 toes with local anesthetic. That was not a small feat since lidocaine burns like the dickens when injected into fingers and toes. The problem arose when I could not contort my hand to approach the cuts at the correct angle to place the sutures. I hobbled down to the emergency room near my office and asked one of the physicians to do the suturing - after all, my toes were already numb. End of story.