Do you ever just feel like you are being left behind? Not in the creepy, Kirk Cameron movies about the apocalypse for teens kind of way, but in the, “life is going on around me and I am standing still at the moment” kind of way?  I don’t feel like this often (and never by choice) but lately, with the studying and the hamster wheel of plans made a long time ago, free will is sort of on the back burner.

My current diet is heavy on the five major food groups: decaf coffee from Java House, microwave popcorn, smoked salmon, citrus fruit, and seltzer water.

It’s not a pretty landscape, nutritionally speaking.  At least it’s not like the last time I took a bar exam, where I ate peanut butter sandwiches 89 times a day.  In the current regulatory climate, I can’t recommend that route.

I digress.  A few days ago I did fight my way into the kitchen, but wasn’t overly thrilled with the results.  Turns out vegetable stock is sort of gross.  Does anyone have anything nice to say about it?  The brand I used was cloyingly sweet and overpowered even the sweet potatoes. So, I’m writing the recipe with vegetable broth instead, because you know, I want the soup to be edible when you make it.

In unrelated news, it was Valentine’s Day yesterday… and that meant that the newspaper was chock full of a sappy articles.  But one that really was sweet was about a 9 year old boy who lost his twin several years ago. His way of facing the grief? Baking.  Check it out- it makes as good a case for kitchen therapy as any. 

Black Bean and Roasted Sweet Potato Soup

Ingredients

2 large sweet potatoes
4 c lower sodium vegetable broth
4 c water
 1 TB olive oil
¼ white onion, diced
1 14 oz can black beans, rinsed and drained
2 TB tomato paste
¼ tsp dried rosemary
1/2 TB fresh ginger, peeled and chopped
4 dried red chili peppers (or to taste)
½ tsp whole peppercorns
1 bay leaf
salt and pepper to taste

Preparation:

Preheat the oven to 400.  Wash the sweet potatoes and pierce each several times with a fork. Roast for about an hour, or until totally soft.  Remove from the oven, set aside until cool enough to handle (about 20 minutes).  Peel and chop potatoes. (I left the skin on; do what you prefer).

Meanwhile, add broth, water and potatoes to a large stock pot and bring to a boil. Turn down to a simmer.

Heat oil in a large skillet over medium-high heat.  Add onion and sauté until soft.  Add beans, and tomato paste  and combine.  Turn heat off.  Add onion mixture to stock pot and turn heat down to medium-low.  Put rosemary, ginger, chile peppers, peppercorns and bay leaf in a large tea ball or cheesecloth for easy removal later. 

Add spices to soup. Cook on low for about 15 -20 minutes, or until beans are softened.  Remove spices.  Season with salt and pepper. Serves 6-8.    

This entry was posted on Sunday, February 15th, 2009 at 2:07 pm and is filed under beans, recipes, soup, sweet potato. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.