A soup

Here’s another soup composed partly of leftovers and additions to round it out. As my e-mail pen-pal, Jen, put it, recipes are about “ideas.” Couldn’t agree more. Visit Jen’s blog; a link is just above this paragraph.

I would make a bet with anyone who cooks regularly that I could rummage through his/her fridge and freezer and find the basics for a soup. I mean, gosh, can’t you make a soup out of almost anything?

Ham and black bean soup
1 tbsp olive oil
¼ medium onion, diced
1 or 2 cloves garlic, minced or pressed
Leftover black beans plus a 14.5 oz. can black beans, drained and rinsed
4 oz. hickory smoked ham, diced
1 14.5 oz. diced tomatoes
2 cups chicken stock
2 corn tortillas, torn into pieces
1 dried pasilla pepper
½ Serrano pepper (or jalapeno), seeded and minced
salt and pepper to taste
1/8 tsp smoked Spanish paprika

Remove the seeds from the pasilla pepper and reconstitute it in hot tap water for 30 minutes. Put it in your food processor with 1/8 cup of the beans and enough chicken stock to form a puree. (The pureed beans will lend texture to the soup.)

Heat the olive oil in a soup pot over medium heat. When hot add onion and sauté for 3-4 minutes. Add garlic, stir, and sauté 1 minute. Add tomatoes and stock and tortillas. Simmer until the tortillas dissolve.

Add all remaining ingredients including the pepper/bean puree, and simmer for 10 minutes. Eat. A nice hunk of crusty bread would be fun with this.