Beautiful Black Bean Soup (3 Star)

I changed the name of this soup to "beautiful" because it had beautiful flavor (and because I like alliteration). I LOVED this soup! Although the appearance was not beautiful at first. In fact in Brandon's words it was "scary". I have never made black bean soup before and so we are not used to such a dark soup. (Really, this might be a great thing to serve at a Halloween party! It could be called "Tar".)

I got this recipe from Smitten Kitchen and she raves about the Toasted Cumin Seed Crema which I thought was good. However, I don't know if mine was as good as hers because, as usual, I forgot to get something at the store and it was the cumin seed. I had cumin powder, though, and I thought that maybe I could just toast the powder which is what I did. It appeared to work but flavor-wise I imagine the seeds would be superior.

This soup was so good, especially after it had been in the fridge for a couple of days. It was incredibly easy, too. The recipe says to put the beans in the crock pot and cook--no soaking. I have never cooked beans without soaking and even though I have seen other recipes instruct this, I have never believed it. But this time I decided to let go of my limiting beliefs and it worked! Within four hours of cooking on high in the crock pot, the beans were soft.

One part of the recipe says to do this: "Transfer two cups bean mixture to blender; puree until smooth. Return puree to remaining soup in slow cooker." Being averse to this kind of hassle, I used an immersion blender and blended until there was a creamy base but still plenty of whole beans.

Isn't it beautiful?





The boys were a bit wary of this soup (I think we all were!), but three of them ate small portions and were okay with it. I think next time I make this they may warm up to it a bit more.