For the first time in about a year I got sick- a minor sinus cold that's left me feeling floppy and under the weather; it's going around up here in Canada. This soup will definitely clear your sinuses out!
YOU WILL NEED:
1 large pot
1 hand blender (or regular blender, but one of those hand stick blenders makes life easier)
1 food processor for to puree one of the cans of beans.
2 15oz cans of black beans, rinsed in cold water and strained (you can use two larger, 19oz cans of beans too, it just makes it beanier! Who can argue with more beans, amiright.)
1 L of vegetable broth
1 medium onion
3 cloves garlic
1 medium scotch bonnet pepper
1/2 cup of corn niblets
1 red pepper
2 diced roma tomatoes
1/4 cup raw quinoa
2T lime juice
1tsp liquid smoke
spices! I used 1 T chili flakes, 1 T ground cumin, 1tsp cinnamon, 1.5T oregano, a few twists of fresh ground black pepper, a pinch of sea salt and a bay leaf.
1 tsp of oil
Dice all your vegetables finely (about a cm cubed or less). Mince the garlic and the scotch bonnet.
in the large pot, heat the oil and sauté the onion and the garlic with the salt and pepper until the onion is translucent. Add the scotch bonnet and a squeeze of lime. Be careful- you can gas yourself out with the fumes if you're not used to sautéing hot peppers!
add the red pepper, the tomatoes and the corn and continue sauteing for a couple minutes until the red pepper is just starting to cook.
add the rest of the herbs and stir well, making sure everything is well coated and cook for another two minutes.
Puree one of the cans of beans with a cup of the vegetable broth in a blender or food processor, and add it to the pot with the rest of the vegetable broth, the other can of solid beans and the liquid smoke.
Bring the soup to a boil and add the 1/4 cup of quinoa. Boil for another 15 minutes, stirring quite often to make sure the quinoa cooks well and nothing sticks to the bottom of the pot. Then, simmer with a slightly askew lid, stirring regularly, for about an hour (or until you can't take it any more and have to eat it!)
Before eating, immerse your hand held stick blender in the soup and carefully give it 5 or 6 solid bursts until the soup is much thicker, but not a homogenous mass- you should still see lots of pieces of vegetable and bean and quinoa, but it should be the consistency of a thin cake batter. If you don't have a hand blender, just carefully scoop out 2 cups of soup, blend it in a regular blender, and add it back to the soup and stir well- no big deal!
I served this garnished with diced spring onions, avocado slices and home made salsa on the side. Now, be warned- this is quite spicy, with the chili flakes and the scotch bonnet pepper. Feel free to substitute the scotch bonnet with a less spicy pepper such as a jalapeno or a smoked chipotle or even leave it out completely and just use chili flakes or a scoop of cayenne or whathaveyou. As I said at the beginning of our bean-y adventure- a good soup is flexible.
