black bean soup!

I made black bean soup last night.  It was so yum!  I got the recipe from 'Whole Foods'.  It is really, really good... This is what I did...

Start with black beans.  I soaked them overnight...  One bag of organic black beans.

I chopped up one onion, red bell pepper, one green pepper, diced 4 cloves of garlic, and you can see the other ingredients in the picture.  They include chipotle peppers in adobo, oregano, cumin, ancho chili powder, and a can of fire roasted tomatoes, among other things. (I used the Whole Foods recipe as a base and jazzed it up to my liking... like adding more garlic and the ancho chili.)

Here it is as it gets started.

We're cooking now!  We simmer the soup like this for at least two hours.  Don't add salt yet!  It will make your beans hard (at least that is what 'they' say).

Once the beans are tender, it's time to finish off the soup.

Instead of salt, I added one tablespoon of chicken base.  I know that makes it not really vegetarian, but I'm not really vegetarian... really.

 I added a half cup (or so) of chopped cilantro.

Now for the secret ingredients...  shhhh don't tell!

 Yup... Cocoa.  Unsweetened cocoa.  It adds an interesting depth to the soup!

 ...and orange juice!

I blended up about two cups of the soup.  Be careful blending hot liquids (just had to put that in)!!

These are the bay leaves I added when we started the soup.  I took them out 'cause they're not too good eatin'.

I toasted up some flour tortillas to go with the soup.  TASTY!

This is the finished soup.  GOODNESS!!

... And finally... Mikey's plate!  I had already dove into my plate when I realized I needed a picture of the final meal... and Mike was willing to be the guinea pig for this.  It was so good!  WOW!  We're having it for dinner again tonight!  YUM!

Happy eating, Y'all!
~P