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Saturday, October 8, 2011

Smoky Black Bean Soup

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Soup season has arrived. I enter Fall kicking and screaming, but if there’s one thing I love about the changing temperatures, it’s soup season. I love sitting with a big bowl of soup and some bread to dip in it, usually sitting under an electric blanket. Soup is great because it’s often relatively simple, relatively healthy, and can be made in big batches, perfect for leftovers. Oh, and it’s WARM! I have quite a lot of soups on The Sweets Life, many of which need to be re-photographed now that I have a better camera and somewhat of an idea about how to take better food photos…which I guess means we’ll be eating a lot of soup in the upcoming months. Darn!

This particular soup recipe was sent to me by my cousin Lori. When she emailed it to me, it was still 90 degrees in St. Louis, but I took advantage of a rainy, cool Sunday and whipped up a batch of this, making it our first soup of the season. I doubled the recipe (my version below) and used only 1 can of fire-roasted tomatoes instead of two because I was worried it would be too spicy. The flavor was good and I don’t think extra spice would’ve been bad, so feel free to use two cans of fire-roasted tomatoes instead of one of each!

Like any good soup, this was easy (literally just dumping a bunch of ingredients in a pot and heating), healthy, and gave us enough for Ryan to enjoy for lunch the next day (it makes about 5-6 servings…we shared with Julia and Nate the first night). Break out the electric blankets and the stockpot...it’s soup season!

What’s your favorite soup? Any I should try this Fall/Winter?

One Year Ago: Moroccan Stew
Two Years Ago: Oreo Delight


Smoky Black Bean Soup
adapted from Cooking Light, as seen on Shine Yahoo

Ingredients:
-2 (15 oz) cans black beans, rinsed and drained
-2 cups water
-1 can (14.5 oz) fire-roasted diced tomatoes, undrained
-1 can (14.5 oz) diced tomatoes, undrained
-1 cup chipotle salsa (I used a jalapeno salsa)
-2 tsp ground cumin

for the salsa-
-1 cup diced peeled avocado
-1 lime
-4 tbsp finely chopped fresh cilantro
-1/4 tsp salt

Directions:
1. Place beans in a medium saucepan. Using a potato masher, mash beans slightly. Stir in water, diced tomatoes, salsa, and cumin.
2. Cover and bring to a boil over high heat. Reduce heat and simmer for 8 minutes. Uncover and cook 2 minutes, or until soup is slightly thickened.
3. In a small bowl, place avocado. Grate rind from limes and squeeze juice from lime into bowl. Add cilantro and salt. Toss gently.
4. Ladle soup into bowls. Top with avocado mixture and sour cream, if desired.