Cuban Black Bean and Sweet Potato Soup

Did you know you can check out cook books from the library electronically on your iPad?!  YAY!!!!  The only draw back is I don't have the book in front of me to make a copy of the recipe or put the book on my book shelf to refer back.  Thank goodness for a blog!  This way I can track my favorite recipes...which is also handy when you're at the grocery store and didn't bring the recipe with you. :)

Cuban Black Bean and Sweet Potato Soup
adapted from 50 Simple Soups for the Slow Cooker by Lynn Alley
2 tablespoons olive oil
1 medium onion, diced
1 cup celery, diced
1 cup carrots, diced
1 cup chopped tomatoes
1 can black beans
4 cups chicken stock
1 medium sweet potato, peeled and cut into 1/2 inch cubes
1 medium green (or any color) bell pepper, seeded and diced
2 teaspoons ground cumin
1 bay leaf
1 teaspoon dried Mexican oregano
1 teaspoon cinnamon
3 cloves of garlic, minced
Pinch of chile flakes
Salt, to taste

In a large pan on medium heat, cook the onions in olive oil for about 10 minutes until lightly browned.  Add the celery, carrots, tomatoes, black beans, sweet potato, bell pepper, and spices.  Add water and bring to a boil.  Turn heat down and simmer until the sweet potatoes are super tender.

I thought this soup sounded unique when I came across it, but was truly amazed how sweet it turned out!  It was almost as though I had added some lime at the end.  I even got my four year old to eat this soup and she begrudgingly said she liked it.  SCORE!!!!

Stay at Home Mom...so much time for cooking!

Alex and I are getting settled in our new digs. We really like the house and LOVE the neighborhood. We actually have deer that come into our backyard! Check it out!These guys come in the evening to feast on our neighbors garden. They are making me think twice about planting a garden next spring...Hopefully our dogs can keep them at bay. LOL!

As a result of giving birth and moving...I have become a stay-at-home mom. I will wait for the laughing to subside. Yes, for those who know me, this is pretty comical. I have always been the career, working girl with ambitions that would take me to the moon and back...and now I stay at home and make my husbands lunch in the morning. An added bonus to the stay-at-home mom thing is I get more time to cook! WHOOHOO!!!! Each week I am scouring the net in search of new fun recipes with the full intent of posting all our yummy meals here. I have to tell you all...the reason I started this blog was so I could show off to my father the new dishes I was cooking. He loves to cook and we like to call each other and brag about the good stuff we make. Now that we live far away...we need it even more.

O.K., let's get past all the nostalgia and get to cooking! I was searching out chicken recipes because I got a raging deal on chicken breasts at Safeway and scored this recipe from Tarts and Calories.

Roasted Chicken and Corn Chowder:
2 cups shredded roasted chicken - instead of purchasing a rotisserie chicken, I baked my chicken breasts in the oven at 350 degrees F for 30 minutes.
1 red pepper, diced
1 potato, diced
2 strips bacon, sliced in 1-inch pieces
1 tsp dried thyme
3 cups frozen corn
3 cups chicken stock
2 cups milk
1 tbsp Tabasco
2 limes
Salt
Cilantro for garnish

In a large stock pot, fry the bacon until crispy and the fat renders out. Scoop out the bacon and set aside on a paper towel lined plate. Into the pot of yummy, yummy bacon fat, add the potatoes, pepper and corn. Cook for five minutes and add in the stock, milk, thyme and Tabasco sauce. Bring to a boil and lower heat to a simmer. Let simmer for 10 minutes until potatoes are tender. Using an immersion blender, puree the mixture. I left it a little chunky in this case, but it's up to you how smooth you'd like it. If you don't own an immersion blender, use a regular one and just puree half of it, if you want a rustic texture.

Then toss in the chicken, bacon pieces and the juice of one lime. Season with desired amount of salt. Garnish bowl with another squeeze of lime and some cilantro. I added a little bit of white onion and garlic to this recipe...because lets face it...what isn't made better with a little onion and garlic? I also left out the thyme because I thought we had some and realized too late that we didn't. I made Alex do my grocery shopping this week and he scored me nice thick pieces of bacon...this recipe is worth making just to smell the bacon cooking in the pan. Oh goodness!!!! I was going to forgo using the immersion blender on half the soup, but when I added everything it needed something to thicken it up, so I gave in. It turned out pretty good.

So the stove top in the house that Alex and I purchased has one temperature...high! It doesn't matter what you set the temperature to it always cooks it at high. I set the temperature to below medium and went to change Kate's diaper and came back to a boiling pan that was almost overflowing. YIKES! I can't wait to get our new gas stove!

Overall, I think this was a decent recipe. Alex told me more bacon would make it better. :) Next time I try this one I am going to play with it a little.

All made up!

I was reading For the Love of Cooking and got a hankering for some of Pam's yummy chili. Unfortunately, I didn't have any of the fixin's for red bean, red meat chili. I did however have white beans and chicken so I decided to make something up. I know...you're thinking...uh oh...we all know what happens when Sarah makes things up. But I pulled this one off FAMOUSLY!

White Bean Chicken Chili:

1 breast of chicken

1 serrano, chopped
1/2 white onion, chopped

1/2 red pepper, chopped

1 can crushed tomatoes

1 cup chicken stock

1 garlic clove crushed

1/2 teaspoon oregano

1/2 teaspoon cumin

1/2 teaspoon sage

1 can great northern beans
1 can navy beans

Heat up a frying pan on medium high with a little olive oil in it and brown on both sides until the juices run clear and the chicken is cooked through.If you are thinking when you start cooking, you could cook the chicken up in the heavy bottomed stock pot instead of dirtying another pan. I, however, was not thinking when I started cooking and used a separate pan. Let the chicken sit for a second or two and then chop up into bite sized pieces and set aside.

In your heavy bottomed stock pot with a little olive oil cook up the onions, red onion and serrano until soft.Add the chicken, tomatoes, chicken stock and seasonings, bring to a simmer. Strain and rinse both cans of white beans and add to stock pot. Stir carefully so as not to break up the white beans. They are much softer beans than red beans and break easily. Simmer for 15 minutes until the beans are warmed through.

This was a pretty great creation. Even Alex was impressed. He has had to eat enough of my silly concoctions that he worries a little when I tell him I am winging it. :) We sure are lucky this one was yummy!

Three Pepper Soup - KNOCK OUT!!!

My aunt made this soup for Alex and I a couple of weeks ago and it ROCKED!!!! My father's mother was Belgian and her side of the family still lives in Belgium. My aunt visited the family not long ago and came home with this recipe. Lucky me and now lucky you!

Three Pepper Soup:

2 medium onions, chopped and sauteed in butter until just transparent.

6 Peppers (red, yellow, orange) - my aunt and I both suggest the Costco six pack.

2 - 3 teaspoons beef or chicken bullion

Enough water to cover the peppers

Boursin cheese with garlic

Chop large and add to onions and continue to saute a minute or two. Add enough water to cover the peppers and onion along with bullion. Bring to a boil and cook gently until vegetables are soft. Then put through the blender so it is smooth. While still hot, add one package of Boursin cheese with garlic. This is a creamy white cheese, so it melts. Stir it in until completely melted and blended. Salt and pepper to taste.

This soup is so simple and so flavorful! The texture is really cool because you have the smoothness, but some chunks from the pepper. If I had kids, I would get them to eat veggies by sneaking them into their soups! What they don't see will only make them healthier!

I am short on pictures for this post because I making the ravioli for last night at the same time. This was the first course of our dinner party last night. I was worried that this soup would be the only edible part of our dinner party. :)