Tuesday, July 10, 2012

Poor Fee's Tomato & Black Bean Soup

Mis amigos

It's a week when I need to stretch the almighty dollar pretty far, so I made soup.


Tomato-Black Bean Soup
3 cloves garlic, smashed
1/4 diced yellow onion
1 green chile, diced
4 fresh roma tomatoes, diced
14oz (1 can) vegetable broth (or use bouillon cubes)
4- 14oz cans diced tomatoes in juice
1-29oz can black beans, drained
1 avocado (for garnish)
1 lime (for garnish)
red pepper flakes (optional)


Sweat the garlic, onion and green chile in your soup pot, about 10 minutes.  Add 3 of the fresh tomatoes and let cook down.  Sprinkle in red pepper flakes.  Add canned diced tomatoes and black beans, reserving a few tablespoons to stir in at the end.  Let simmer until hot.

Now bust out that blender! If you have an immersion blender, bravo, that's a fancy kitchen appliance.  If you're like me, you're blending the soup in batches.  Blend until mostly smooth, then transfer back into the soup pot.  Adjust seasoning, and then add the reserved black beans and diced fresh tomato for texture.

Serve with avocado slices, a squeeze of fresh lime juice, your favorite hot sauce, and a hot tortilla. 

For all the canned goods (tomatoes, beans, broth) I try to find salt-free or low sodium wherever possible.  You can always add more salt.   It's not so fun to rinse your dinner with water and wash the flavor out because you dumped too much salt in.  No, it's not.

I also made a salad to go along with...



Collard Green Salad
2 or 3 large leaves collard greens, stems removed, chopped into thin strips
1/2 avocado, diced
1/2 small lime, juiced
salt & pepper
olive oil

I wanted some crunch so I treated the greens like I would raw kale, massaging the leaves with the lime juice and salt.  Simple. Yummy.

Tuesday Tidbit:  I rarely eat collard greens because often they're sitting sloppy and cold in a bowl, and it's the last thing I want to eat with dinner.  BUT I just discovered that raw collard greens pale in comparison to cooked for nutritional value, which boasts 5 times as much fiber, 4 times as much protein, and similar boosts in Vitamin A, Calcium, and Antioxidants.  What's not to love?

felicious