Cuban Black Bean Soup

I bought a new soup magazine, and the recipes all look pretty awesome. I started by making the Cuban Black Bean Soup (p. 80). This recipe is low fat and does not have any meat. The recipe does call for beef-flavored broth OR vegetable broth. I used beef broth because that's what I had in my cupboards.

This recipe gave me the opportunity to to cook with dried beans. My friend Amanda & some friends on Twitter have given me a lot of advice on dried beans. There advice mostly consisted of "let them soak for a lonnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnggg time." This recipe also gave me the opportunity to use two new toys! My sister gave me an immersion blender for Christmas. It was a GREAT gift.

The other toy is a new Dutch oven. I splurged and bought it at an outlet mall. Isn't it pretty?
Remember how I said that I was told to soak the beans for a long time? Well, the recipe only called for 1 hour after boiling and 2 hour with some of the other ingredients. I was very skeptical of this. I let the beans soak overnight in the fridge, and I'm very glad that I did. On the flip side, oversoaking beans can lead to fermenting.

Ingredients:
2 2/3 cups dried black beans
2 T vegetable oil
3 garlic cloves, chopped
1 onion, chopped
3 cups of beef broth
3 cups of water
1/4 cup dark rum
1 t liquid smoke
1 1/2 t ground cumin
1 1/2 t dried oregano
1 green bell pepper, chopped
1 tomato, chopped

Rinse the beans. After soaking the beans for at least overnight, put the beans in a 4 or 5 quart Dutch oven. Cover the beans with water and boil, uncovered. Then, remove from heat, cover, and let stand for one hour. This is where I'm really glad that I purchased my Dutch oven. I used to try to do these things with a stock pot, and it just never worked out.

Drain the liquid and remove the beans. In the Dutch oven, now add oil on medium heat. Toss in the garlic and onions. Heat until tender.

Add the rest of the ingredients and the beans. Boil for two minutes. Cover and reduce the heat to low. Simmer for two hours. Then, make sure that the beans are tender. Dried beans take patience.

Now I used my fancy new immersion blender to smooth the mixture. You could use a blender or food processor. Once the soup is smooth, serve!

I really liked the unique taste of this soup. It was really different and almost peculiar. The liquid smoke added a lot of character. I recommend serving this soup with a grilled cheese.

Serenity in your kitchen means that you're okay when the magazine photo looks like this:...And your soup looks like this, but it still tastes delicious:

Tomato-Basil Soup

I got this recipe from one of my favorite cookbooks.

You can buy it here. I received it as a gift from my BF's parents.

Last week I tried the Tomato-Basil Soup that is a copycat from Applebee's.

Making this soup was my first opportunity to use my newly purchased food processor!

I really wanted to buy a big, expensive food processor, but I said to myself,

"Self, you are not the Duggars. You live alone. You are not feeding a family of 21."

Back to the recipe..

Ingredients:
5 large tomatoes, peeled, seeded, and diced
5 cups of V8
16 fresh basil leaves
1/4 cup minced onion
2 garlic cloves
1/2 teaspoon Italian seasoning
1 1/4 cups of heavy cream
1 stick of melted butter
Salt and pepper

On medium heat, combine the tomatoes and juice in a cooking pot for 30 min.


Add the Italian seasoning, basil, minced onion, and crushed garlic.
Next, I poured this mixture into my food processor. The recipe in the book suggests pureeing with a hand blender. I'll have to put a immersion blender on my Christmas list.Once it's pureed to the desired consistency, pour it into a crock pot, set to low. Slowly add in the butter and cream. Finally, add the salt and pepper. Leave it in the crock pot for 1 1/2 to 2 hours.

Serve with shredded cheese and/or bread.