I sometimes ask, what are the things I always need in a fridge? (I mean, aside from Dijon and more cheese than particularly healthy.) The answer changes with the seasons. This summer, it’s a lot of pesto and roasted hot pepper puree.
The pesto gets thrown in everywhere: in the cavity when cooking a whole fish, along with tossed roasted veggies, on pasta, of course, or as a sauce for quick pizza. The spicy puree gets into even more places, even the pesto, into salsa, into any sauce and pretty much any cavity I can manage to stuff and grill.
Both change week to week, whether basil, coriander, kale or parsley based; and whichever peppers look freshest, tossed with red or green bell peppers, green onions and roast garlic.
Last week’s pepper puree was about a half dozen Jalapeno peppers, four cloves of garlic, one green pepper and two green onions, all grilled till they blistered and then pulsed in the food processor with a few glugs of olive oil and some salt.
Monday was dreary in Montreal. Cold weather, grey skies and rain that started at noon and never, ever let up. We’re heading out of town this weekend, so we’re once again clearing out the fridge. Colder weather and a need to clean spell one opportunity: soup.
Soup doesn’t need fussiness, but I tend to prepare it early and like to let it sit before rewarming it, whenever I can. A lot of recipes claim fast soups at less than half an hour, but I like a soup with a rich mingling of flavors. Flavors that, hang on, “pot-crastinate.” A soup’s best when done slowly, each step accomplished and forgotten about while you go on to other things around the house, until finally everything’s assembled, the last bit is thrown into the pot, and you just warm it up right before serving (making it look effortless).
Yesterday’s project was spicy black bean soup.
We had a good pound and a half of tomatoes in the fridge to get through, and so I cut each of the guys crosswise and left them cut-side up along a rimmed cookie sheet. Salt and peppered each of them, along with a drizzle of olive oil, and then roasted them at 425 for a good 30 minutes (till the skin just started to blister). Plenty of time to kick back and read.
After letting them cool, they got thrown into the food processer for pulsing.
Meanwhile, I sautéed one finely chopped onion, the leftover half of red pepper we still had, and three (rapidly softening) carrots from the bottom of the crisper. Salt and pepper.
I emptied a can of diced tomatoes to the mix, and then the roasted tomatoes. A couple of tablespoons of the hot pepper puree, two-ish cups of chicken stock, and two drained cans of black beans. I added a handful of fresh coriander since I had it around, and a dash of cumin.
The pot came to a boil, the lid went on, and the soup simmered for a good hour. At this point, I took the immersion blender and went to town. I prefer a chunkier soup, so this is a fast step that still brings out a nice texture and lets you be a bit lazy when it comes to the initial chopping up of veggies. I added a bit more stock at this point, because the soup was creeping towards the sludgy side of things.
Now you can sit back and enjoy the rest of the afternoon.
About thirty minutes before supper I assembled the ingredients for a quick skillet cornbread to serve alongside. I took the base for the recipe from Martha Stewart’s website. Thank Google for the hit. My criteria was just something quick, and this one popped up right away.
“Martha’s” recipe has you add together 1 ¼ cups of yellow cornmeal and all-purpose flour, along with 2 tablespoons of sugar, 1 ½ teaspoons of baking powder, ½ teaspoon of coarse salt. In an separate bowl you whisk together 1 large egg and 1 ¾ cups of buttermilk. To this, I went off-recipe and added a tablespoon of my hot pepper pureer (why not?) and about a third of a cup of grated old cheddar. Wets and solids are mixed together and poured into a 10-inch cast iron skillet where you’ve already melted a good 4 tablespoons of butter. Bake for 25 minutes at 425.
Now, if you’ve timed it right, which I didn’t, you pull the skillet out just as your girlfriend arrives, before you spill that glass of wine, and just as you turn off the simmering soup just as she sits at the table. In my case, I distracted her with jokes, and managed to “plate” while the skillet was cooling and just as we cleaned up the mess from the wine.
A second glass was poured, and soup was served topped with slices of avocado, tiny bit of sea salt, and fresh coriander.
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