Last Friday's Bean Soup Supper

Day off from work Bean Soup over Rice with a Green Salad
RECIPE:
Bean Soup
¾ cup dried pinto beans
¾ cup dried kidney beans
two large piece of wakame sea vegetable (or two teaspoons salt)
two jalapeno peppers
one hot green pepper
1 small red onion, chopped
kernels from two ears of corn
three carrots, cubed
1 large bunch of swiss chard, rinsed and cut into ½ inch strips.
Rice (or other favorite) vinegar to taste
¼ cup chopped almonds
salt and pepper to taste
Rinse and soak the kidney and pinto beans for 5 hours. Overnight is better.
Drain beans, cover with water plus two-three inches in a large stock pot, add two large pieces of wakame sea vegetable (not the instant kind) and bring to a gentle boil. (If you are serving over rice, start the rice cooking at the same time) After beans have been simmering for 10 minutes or so add the chopped red onion and the three peppers. You can adjust the hotness of your soup with the number and spiciness of your peppers. When beans are finally soft (30-40 minutes) add in the corn and carrots. When the corn and carrots are still crispy and not quite done add in swiss chard, cover and cook for about 2 minutes. Remove from heat, sprinkle the chard with some vinegar before stirring the green into the soup and serve over rice with chopped almonds sprinkled on top.
Brown Rice:
1 cup short grain brown rice
½ cup mixture of black and red rice
3 cups of water.
Combine rice and water in a pot, cover, place on high heat until the water boils, reduce to a simmer and remove from heat once the water is absorbed.
Garden Salad:
Fresh salad greens
1 cucumber peeled, and seeded. Cut into ½ inch pieces.
2 carrots, grated.
Sprouts
1 scallion
a few paper thin slices of onion.
Dress with favorite vinaigrette.
Nothing could be better than soup and a salad. Especially when the soup is full of brightly colored veggies, contains two hearty beans and is served over a bowl of brown rice.
STORY:
When I fantasize about not having a day job, I fantasize about getting to the market early to find the freshest veggies, then making it home in time to soak the appropriate bean for the evening’s meal. As it is, I find the veggies after work and often whish that I had a few black beans or pintos pre-soaked and anxiously awaiting my culinary designs on their future. To be better able anticipate my bean needs is a recurring day dream of mine. I’m not sure what that says about me, but I’m pretty certain that I’m OK with it.
Friday, however, I happened to have the day off and knew that I wanted to have some pinto and kidney beans at the ready for dinner. So at about 9am, after my breakfast (what a luxury it is to sleep past 6am) I covered some beans with water, stuck them in the fridge and proceeded to meet my mom for a lovely walk along the Kenduskeag stream here in Bangor. I’ve been thinking a lot about chili recently because winter is coming and it is time to start thinking about hearty soups and stews. Also because our apartment is finally in a state of messy-ness that is tolerable and mild enough to withstand company, I’ve been thinking about what to cook when people finally come over. The thing about inviting people to share a meal is the fact that Mike and I eat a lot of food that most people might not be familiar with or particularly enthusiastic about. If you love good ol’ fashioned American meat and potatoes, a ginger and lemongrass soup with rice noodles, kale and carrots might not be your cup of tea. Or cup of soda as the case may be. The point is, I want to be able to prepare food that our guests would easily recognize as tasty without having to be sold on it first. Enter my recent thoughts about chili. Everyone loves chili and most people will even enjoy a meat free one without hesitation. Of course, I have no real supporting information for this claim, but I’ll reserve any evidence based science for the classroom and leave all the conjecture and imagined facts here floating and bobbing amidst the internet ether. Point is, I wanted to make a hearty bean soup.
For this soup, I didn’t do anything fancy, I just used water and some wakame sea vegetable to make the “broth.” The beans, however, impart a lot of flavor during the cooking process. The best part of this soup was the fact that I included corn, swiss chard and carrots. The veggies were kept crisp which is sometimes a surprise in a soup and the contrasting colors made the bowl all the more appetizing. Kudos to me.
If you like cumin this would have been a good flavor choice for this soup. I try to avoid dried spices, however, because many are packaged with a small amount of flour in order to keep them from clumping. Flour + my belly= disaster.
This meal would also be nice with some corn bread cooked in a cast iron skillet. Perhaps I’ll do that when it comes time to finally invite some friends over.