My New Friend

I invited my first California friend over for dinner and took the opportunity to make a new recipe! (I have found its easier to make two servings than one when following a recipe)

One of the benefits of being a minister is that certain congregations have amazingly generous spirits and help furnish your apartment to make you feel more at home. One wonderful woman in my congregation gave me her copy of the Moosewood cookbook, which has turned out to be a great resource. Many of the recipes are vegan and others are easily alterable.

So, from that cookbook I pulled a recipe for Brazilian Black Bean Soup. I completed the menu with a personal favorite (and staple of my diet), Root Vegetable Chips.

Brazilian Black Bean Soup
(This is the recipe as printed in Moosewood. I halved the recipe and made some slight alterations. My alterations other than halving are in parentheses.)



2 cups dry black beans, soaked (I used one can for the half recipe, rinsed)
6 cups water (with the can, this was unnecessary. I added a bit of water but not much)
1 Tbs olive oil
10 medium cloves garlic, crushed
3 cups chopped onion
2 tsp cumin
2 to 2.5 tsp salt (because of the canned beans, I did not add any salt)
1 medium carrot, diced
1 medium bell pepper, diced
1.5 cups orange juice (living in citrus country, I just juiced 2 oranges for the half recipe)
black pepper, to taste
cayenne, to taste (I added spicy salsa as a topping, so I left the cayenne out)
2 medium tomatoes, diced (the recipe indicates this is optional but I thought it really added something. I would recommend the tomato)

Optional toppings: sour cream, cilantro, and salsa (I only used salsa)

1) Place the soaked beans in a kettle or Dutch oven with 4 cups water. Bring to a boil, cover, and simmer until tender. About 1.25 hours. (skip this step if using canned beans, obv)

2) Heat olive oil in a medium-sized skillet (I just put this in a large pot and then added all ingredients on top). Add onion, half the garlic, cumin, salt, and carrot. Saute over medium heat until the carrot is just tender. Add remaining garlic and the bell pepper. Saute until everything is very tender, about an additional 10-15 minutes. Add the sauteed mixture to the beans, scraping every last morsel. (or add the beans to everything else, as the case may be)

3) Stir in orange juice, black pepper, cayenne, and optional (not really optional) tomatoes. Puree all or some of the soup in a blender or food processor (I did half and it was a good choice), and return to kettle (pot). Simmer over very low heat 10 to 15 minutes more. Serve topped with an artful arrangement of sour cream, cilantro, and salsa.

Serves 6-8 (or 2-3 if halved. I don't know how that works but that's what happened)

Root Vegetable Chips
Any root vegetable will work here, but basically a sweet potato or yam is a must. As you will see below, this recipe is extremely precise (sarcasm).



Root vegetables (including but not limited to sweet potatoes, beets, potatoes, yams, taro, etc.)
Olive oil
Salt and Pepper to taste AND/OR cayenne pepper and cumin for an extra zing

Preheat oven to 375 degrees. Cut vegetables into thin chips as pictured above or into strips (like fries) pictured here:



Toss vegetables in a bowl with olive oil until all chips are thinly covered. Put chips onto a pan and shake spices on top. Bake for 10-15 minutes on each side (20-30 minutes total).


This final image is the foil that I put on the pan for roasting the root vegetables. It turned out beautiful thanks to the beets!