Leguminous Soup

I love soup. Especially bean soup. My favorite is lentil soup. Soup soup soup. Today it's snowing outside and you know what the perfect remedy for that is? Soup! I'm not using a recipe. Recipes are for squares and people who like to read. Actually I love to read, but now is not the time. Going recipe-free also means if I mess up, there is no one to blame but myself. Kind of like when you live alone and your tupperware goes missing but you can't blame your roommate for misplacing it.

Today I'm using three kinds of beans: kidney beans, black beans and those lens shaped beans called lentils. I started by fast-soaking the kidney and black beans. I did this by adding 1/2 pound of each kind to a pot of hot water and boiled them for two minutes. Then I turned off the heat and let them sit and think about their problems for an hour.

Came back to the kitchen an hour later and saw that the kidney and black beans had solved all the world's problems. Not really. They're just getting closer to being part of a delicious bean fusion. I drained and rinsed the beans and let them sit in the colander while I prepped the cooking pot. First I poured in a splash of olive oil, heated it up a bit, and then tossed in about four cloves of minced garlic. I let the garlic simmer for a minute before adding some water. Then I added the kidney and black beans, along with half a pound of green lentils. I added enough water so that the beans had a bit of swimming room. This is the part where I hypothesized that I may not be using a big enough pot, but it was the biggest pot in the house, and it was too late to go back now...

Next I added a sprinkling of each of the following: turmeric, garlic powder (just for good measure), chili powder, celery seed, oregano, and a bay leaf. Some of these spices I happened to have after my pickling endeavor earlier in the year. Were it not for that, there would have been a great deal fewer spices in this recipe. Why add all of these spices in the first place? I figure the more spices I add, the more chances there are for this bean soup to reach a state of deliciousness.

Boilin' away

Unknown amount of time passes...

After several stirrings and bean tenderness tests, the beans became mostly tender to the teeth, and I released the cooking pot from the blaze. The kidney beans and green lentils cooked faster than the black beans, and I chose to enjoy the soup with a slightly chewier black bean rather than over-cooking the other two bean types. Forming a leguminous mush was not part of the no-recipe plan.

A quick taste of the soup revealed a flavorful bite of beans fit for eating. I had boiled up a batch of a wild rice blend to pour the bean soup over, and the two components paired together nicely. It was a fabulous dish on a college kid budget, and perfect on a chilly December day. You really should have come over for dinner.

Soup's on! And look at how wild that rice looks

The soup in its final form