Black Bean and Sweet Potato Soup

If you read my blog, you are [likely] painfully aware of my bean obsession. I have also continued my soup obsession that found me sometime last November – both making soup and buying soup for lunch when I haven’t made it. Ergo, I stop by the Castle Hill Cafe which is connected to my gym (the most awesome gym ever!) on a daily basis. The reason that I stalk the soup peddlers at the cafe is because they have the best damn soup ever. Everyday it is different and everyday it puts other soup to shame. Other perks are that it is organically made using local ingredients and generally vegan and vegetarian friendly. This day I was somewhat under-thrilled to try the product as I am not the biggest fan of sweet potatoes – especially when they are sweet not savory, but I tried it to appease my bean craving. IT WAS INCREDIBLE. The flavor was complex and the soup was hearty and delicious. The girl who made the soup later was awesome enough to tell me her ingredients and I promptly took myself to the store to get sweet potatoes. I recreated it pretty well and ate it happily for days! This is an approximation of what I did as I made it almost two months ago and just now writing the recipe. Sorry for the lack of picture. I was too excited to eat the soup to bother with my phone!!

If Castle Hill Cafe ever makes a cookbook, an undertaking that I wish for daily, you guys will be the first to know (and I may actually follow the recipes to a tee – that is how wonderful they are)!

Black Bean and Sweet Potato Soup

Inspired by Castle Hill Café

Serves 4-8

Three cans black beans
Three large sweet potatoes
One white onion
Eight garlic cloves
Three or Four Celery Ribs
Seven Carrots (I like a lot of carrot so I used a lot – adjust as necessary)
Two Turkish Bay Leaves
One Tablespoon Ground Cumin
Half tablespoon Ground Coriander
Two Tablespoons Red Pepper Flakes
Half Teaspoon Cinnamon
Good Pinch of Salt
One tablespoon black pepper

Clean and dry sweet potatoes. Toss potatoes with a bit of olive oil, cumin, salt, and lime juice. Roast in oven for 45 minutes and remove when soft. Meanwhile, saute onions, garlic, celery and carrots in a couple of tablespoons of olive oil until glassy. Add black beans, veggie stock, bay leaves, cumin, coriander, red pepper flakes, cinnamon, salt and pepper and let simmer until the potatoes are finished cooking. Remove the soft potatoes and mash to desired consistency (I left some chunks because I wanted some good, thick pieces of sweet potato). Add to the simmering stew and mix well to incorporate. You can emulsify or blend the soup, mash it with a masher, or leave as is. Top with fresh herbs of choice (optional – I topped with cilantro) and serve with a salad for a healthy vegan meal.

The name for this healthy weeknight pasta is a hybrid of Naked ‘Green Machine’ smoothie (which I had enjoyed earlier in the day) and ‘Cookie Monster’ because he cannot stop eating cookies (i.e. me around pasta).  This dish was a hybrid of  leftover “Squashy Pasta” sans beets and the rest of my greens in the fridge that needed using. To supplement my dwindling supply of Farro pasta, I added a bit of Whole Wheat Orrechiete (of the same brand). In retrospect this was a terrible idea because my self-control around pasta plummets to sub-zero levels. However, the pasta itself was awesome.  You can leave the chicken out to make this a quick, healthy, tasty vegetarian meal if you like. The name is a semi-misnomer as this dish includes non-green veg as well – but the green is the predominant color, so operating on the “not everything is green in green goddess dressing” we are going to stick with the name.

This recipe assumes that you do not have any leftover Squashy pasta. Use whatever veg you like, is in season, needs to be used and just make sure that at least half is green!

Green Monster Pasta

Serves 4-6

Farro Gemelli Pasta (Rustichelle d’Abruzzo brand or favorite), one-half to one box 

One recipe Roasted Butternut Squash

Three Zucchini cut into large quarters

One Yellow Squash cut into large quarters

Broccoli Rabe or Crowns, slightly steamed

Three to four larger shallots, sliced into thin strips

Five or Six Garlic Cloves

Three Cups Baby Spinach

One bunch of asparagus, cut into one-inch pieces (or slightly larger) and slightly steamed

Black Pepper

Small amount of Pecorino Romano, Shredded

Half-Cup to Cup of Basil Pesto (depending on preference(

Half-cup to two-thirds cup Unsweetened Cranberries (depending on preference)

Quarter cup White Wine

     One Chicken Breast with seasoning of choice, sliced

Quarter Cup reserved pasta water

 One bunch of fresh basil, julienned

An hour prior, prepare the butternut squash (or make the night before). Once the squash has about twenty minutes left, begin to steam beets and bring salted pasta water to boil. Reserve beets and add pasta to water to cook for about 14 minutes. Heat a bit of olive oil in a large saute pan and add garlic, shallots and a bit of pepper. Cook until glassy (add crushed red pepper if desired). Hit this with the white wine and cook off the alcohol. Salt Zucchini, Tomatoes, and Squash and when the pasta has about two minutes left to cook, add to the saute pan (this is to make sure your veggies still have some crunch. Drain pasta, reserving a small amount of the pasta water, and add pasta to the saute pan. Add beets, roasted butternut squash, pesto, black pepper, and a small amount of grated Pecorino cheese. Add small amount of water a bit at a time as needed to make a sauce. Mix well and garnish with plenty of fresh basil and serve.

After the Hot Peppermint Coco discovery I found my mind drifting – with alarming frequency – to Rumplemintz.  I began to day dream about what I could mix it with that would be amazing. Marshmellows….cookies….rum balls. I thought the later might get me involuntarily sent to AA so I scratched it. Then a wonderful idea came to me – Boozy Brownies. You have to try it just for the name. I did in fact make sure that it could be done at my former [wonderful] department’s Christmas luncheon at Old School Bar and Grill in Austin. Their dessert chef was amazing and was gracious enough to respond to this inquistive diner (I asked if I would need to omit liquid to make room for the alcohol or if it oculd be added in as is) but hey – I haven’t never made brownies and I never claimed to be a baker. It was super easy and makes a perfect paring with ice cream or crumbled into a milkshake.

Boozy Brownies 

One Box of favorite Brownie Mix, plus ingredients it gives on box (depending of the brand you will likely need oil/water/butter/and-or eggs – you can sub applesauce if desired) 

One to two cups (depending on preference) chopped walnuts, AfterEight dark chocolate mints, and dried cherries (or cranberries) 

One to three shot glasses of Rumplemintz (I think I may have used around four)

Candy canes or peppermints to make Peppermint Dust  

Follow instructions for brownie making on box. Add Rumplemintz and chopped goodies. Bake to specified time. Meanwhile, place several candy canes in a food processor or blender and pulse until all or most large chunks are gone and a semi-dust like material remains. Dust the brownies with the crushed peppermint.

Note: I apologize for the lack of pictures in some recent recipes….I got a new phone and lost all my stored photos.

 

It has been a while since my last post. Since last year in fact!! I hope everyone had a wonderful holiday season!  My absence is fully attributable to a complete “check-out” from all things computer after a grueling semester which immediately followed a grueling legislative session and special session immediately following a grueling semester…you get the idea. Between working full-time, grad school work/class/projects/papers/research, and job searching/interviewing (which we all know can be a full-time job) and house hunting – I really wanted to throw my computer out of the window. As you can imagine, I really lacked much time to cook during all this and fully intended to use my nice, nearly month-long break from work and school (god bless excess vacation days) to do three things: work out, cook all the new ideas I have, and run a giant list of errands. I succeded in working out. I minimally accomplished two but most cooking took place in a dutch oven and most errands were pushed to the wayside. November 2011 will forever be remembered (at least by me) as take-out month. I pushed out a few posts the second week of December, but just lacked the desire to do anything more than work out and sleep.

My cooking is usually a spastic process similar to what was just outlined.  I admit I have been more organized and maybe there is a half-truth to the saying practice makes perfect….I will not ever be perfect (especially if you throw in a vodka whilst I am in between apps and mains), but practice certainly does make better, more thoughtful and organized versions of food in Andiland – for example…I managed to have Christmas dinner ready in time and without a huge mess or crazy kitchen. Most ingredients are still thrown together haphazardly – I have accepted the fact that I will probably never be able to follow a recipe – they are usually well thought out (in Andiland – this may not be applicable in the real world) and rarely come out inedible. That said, after my hiatus from cooking – I was off my game, or maybe I was even apathetic toward my food (sacrilege I know) and actually had to throw out a batch of gnocchi that I made. This is likely more of a reflection of my extreme lack of the essential patience it takes to make proper gnoochi or risotto, than the ability to make it, at that particular time. So I took out that frustration on a new endeavor – soups and stews. I have made stews several times before, but it has never been a permanent guest of my dutch oven. I have done a 180 apparently, because I made soup about 90 percent of the time in December. The trend continues; as I write this, I am enjoying a delicious black bean soup that benefitted from an accidental addition of roasted tomatillos that was intended for the Chicken Mole I was planning to make to accompany it (when I was not making it, I was eating eat from my favorite Austin eats).

The moral of the story: even though I had to feed myself out of seemingly endless brown cartons and slept less than a colicky newborn – I completed grad school with high marks, landed an amazing position as Director of Advocacy, and had enough vacation time to take a month and a half off my old job with pay! Life has a funny way of working out sometimes…so Happy 2012 everyone and I cannot wait to resume my cooking and blogging life.