Corn and Black Bean Soup

This recipe is a mish-mash of most of the black bean soup recipes out on the web. I took a few ingredients here, a few there, and put them together into something that I thought Tony and I would enjoy. 

Once you learn the basics of making soup, it's surprisingly easy to throw flavors together to fit your mood. Tonight, I wanted to have a Mexican dish, but without all of the tortillas, re-fried beans and ground beef (yesss...I know that isn't the whole of Mexican food, but that's what I probably would have made otherwise, minus the re-fried beans, yak!).

Try this recipe, or adapt and add on to it as you see fit!

Note: There are a lot of pictures in this post. This is primarily because this time, I was not the photographer! Tony took all of the pictures while I frantically chopped, pureed, stirred and sweated. I was scanning through the photos, and I noticed that I liked almost all of them! So, you get blessed with a bunch of photos for this recipe :). Enjoy!

Corn and Black Bean Soup

Serves 4

Ingredients:

2 Tbs vegetable oil

1/2 cup diced onion (or more, if you like lots of onion)

2 cloves garlic, minced

1 cup celery, sliced

1 cup carrots, sliced into discs

2 cans black beans, rinsed and drained (or 3/4 bag of dried black beans, soaked overnight and drained)

1 can whole kernel corn, rinsed and drained

1 can light (fat-free), low sodium chicken broth

2 tsp red wine vinegar

Dash (or a little less than 1/4 tsp) liquid smoke

1 tsp cumin

1 tsp chili powder

Dash of cayenne pepper, or a pinch of red pepper flakes for extra heat

1/4 tsp salt

Procedure:

1. Heat the vegetable oil in a soup pot over medium-low heat. When the oil is hot, add the onion, garlic, celery and carrots.

2. Saute the vegetables for about 10-15 minutes, or until the onions are translucent and the carrots are beginning to be tender.

3. Take about 1 cup of the black beans, mix with 1/2 cup of the chicken broth and puree in a food processor or blender until smooth.

4. Once the sauteed veggies are tender, add the pureed beans, whole beans, corn, spices, vinegar and liquid smoke to the pot.

5. Bring the mixture to a boil over medium-high heat, then reduce to a simmer (setting 2-3 on my range top). Simmer uncovered for 35 minutes on low heat, until the soup is thick like a stew. I added about 1/4 cup hot water to the soup at 30 minutes so it wasn't too thick.

6. Serve garnished with cheese, if you like. I shredded one of my Babybel Gouda cheese wheels on top and it was delicious! I also served with a side of packaged (Martha White) Mexican cornbread, which went with the soup excellently!