Soup of Beans, Kale, and Squash

This is a hefty main-course soup, thick with vegetables and lightly spicy-herbal. You can use any one of a number of dried beans—chickpeas, black-eyed peas, Great Northern beans, navy beans, small lima beans, and pink beans are all good candidates. The palest varieties, though, will present the most appealing plateful of contrasting colors: orange squash, cream beans, and spruce-green kale. Like all hearty compound soups, this one improves with mellowing time.