Black Bean Soup

As much as I love Thanksgiving, and all of the food that comes with it, it’s nice to change things up a little the week after.  After all of the rich food and dessert last week, something simple is just right this week. 

This also seems to be the time of year when things just keep getting busier, so easy meals are very welcome.  A Crock Pot meal that’s ready and waiting when I get home is perfect. 

I love this recipe for so many reasons.  First of all, it’s delicious.  It’s also very simple to put together in the morning before work, especially if you do the chopping the night before.  The beans don’t have to soak, so that’s one less step.  I think it’s reasonably healthy since it’s vegetarian, and doesn’t have packaged ingredients. 

Black Bean Soup:

16 oz. (1 pound) dried black beans
2 onions, chopped
2 bell peppers, chopped
½ cup firmly packed fresh cilantro leaves
1 Tbsp salt
1 ½ tsp chili powder
1 ½ tsp cumin
½ tsp pepper
4 cloves garlic, pressed
10 cups water

Rinse beans, and place all ingredients in a large slow cooker.  Cover and cook on Low 9 - 10 hours. 

The soup is great on it’s own, but it’s also really good topped with diced onion, avocado, or salsa.  And it pairs well with cornbread. 

Another Rainy Day

We are getting drenched here in our little piece of the world.  It has been raining off and on (more on than off) since Thursday night, and really picked up yesterday.  Rain is definitely not one of my favorite things.  I prefer sunny skies with puffy white clouds. However, I am working on keeping a more positive outlook, so I’ve tried to come up with some things that I do like about rainy days.  I managed to think of five, so here they are:

1.  I don’t have to water the garden.  Mother Nature is taking care of that for me today, so no need to drag out the hose and watering can.  That’s one thing off of my to do list for today.  I’m also told that lettuce likes the cooler, rainy weather.  I’m hoping that my pots of lettuce will begin to thrive since we’ve had so much rain. 

2.  My husband enjoys overcast days, and really likes the rain, so he has been very happy with the weather

lately. 

3.  The cats are always incredibly snuggly when it’s rainy.  There’s nothing quite like cuddling up with a purring cat (or four) on a rainy night.

4.  Soup!  Rainy days are perfect for homemade soup.  Tonight it’s chicken noodle soup from the slow cooker. 

5.  Emma looks really cute walking around in her Thundershirt, and it seems to make a huge difference for her to wear it. 

So what about you?  Do you like or dislike the rain?  Are there things you like about rainy days?

Fire Drill, (Almost) Flaming Cat Tail, Cold Wind & Soup

Are any of you in an area being affected by Hurricane Sandy?  I suppose the more appropriate question would be are any of you NOT in an area being affected by Hurricane Sandy?

We’ve had a VERY windy past few days, and it has been cold; very, very cold.  I realize that we’re fortunate and I shouldn’t complain, but I do miss the warmer weather.  Our area has had some power loss, but we’ve been lucky so far.

The wind has been blowing lots of things around; we’ve lost a Halloween decoration, lost some branches, and gained a bunch of leaves.  I think the branches and leaves are a pretty fair trade, so nothing to complain about there. 

The building I work in lost power yesterday afternoon, so we were able to go home an hour early.  We apparently lost power at home at some point (the digital clocks were flashing when I got home yesterday), but it was back on by the time I came home from work.  Some of the traffic lights were out on way home, but were working again by this morning.  It seems that the utilities people are doing an amazing job keeping things up and running here.

I decided that this was the perfect weather to try a new soup recipe.  Soup is just so perfect for cold nights, and I thought there was a reasonable chance we’d end up with company due to power outages, or end up at my husband’s grandparents’ house if we lost power (they live on the opposite side of town, so we were going with the thought/hope that at least one household would have power).  So a big pot of soup seemed like a good idea.

I found this recipe for Beer & Cheese Soup.  It was delicious!  We didn’t have Dijon Mustard, so I left that out.  I also added one extra cup of cheese.  I thought it was a little on the salty side, but my husband didn’t.  I think I’ll use half the salt the recipe calls for when I make it again, but it was still fabulous.  It makes a lot, so it’s great for a crowd, and re-heats well.  I didn’t serve it with popcorn either, just bread. 

We have turned on the heat in both parts of the house now that it is so cold.  We have a room that’s an add-on, so it’s not part of the central heating and cooling system.  It has a wall heater that is natural gas.  It isn’t pretty, but it keeps that room very warm, and my husband says it will work if we lose power.  We plan to eventually replace it with some sort of gas logs fireplace type thing. 

It turns out that “eventually” may need to come sooner than we thought.  Tara was walking around the heater last night (it’s next to the cabinet we keep their food in) and brushed her tail into it.  Her tail was on the flame!  It was one of those heart-stopping, I can’t believe this is happening moments.  We both just knew she was going to catch on fire.  She scares so easily and always runs when she’s scared, so we were terrified we wouldn’t be able to catch her quickly.  Somehow, she didn’t catch on fire.  Her tail wasn’t even singed.  I think it took some years off both our lives, but she is fine.  We turned it down to the lowest setting, so there was less of a flame, for the rest of the night.  We also locked all of the fur kids out of that room. 

I’ve been emailing my husband various fireplace screens that I’ve found online.  We will probably be ordering one tonight.  I don’t know if we can take another close call like that.  We have to keep the fur kids safe. 

This morning they apparently decided to make us pay for the extra hour off yesterday.  We had a fire drill shortly after 8:30.  I have no idea why they picked a day when it was 34 degrees and windy for the fire drill, but they did.  We spent about 15 minutes standing outside shivering and complaining.  I think we made it back inside in a lot less time than it took us to leave the building!

Here’s wishing for warm, sunny days for everyone.  I hope you’re all staying safe and doing well during the storm.