Spicy Salsa Baked Bean Soup

This is utterly stupid, but the I was going to make Trader Joe’s Vegetarian Black Bean Soup but I had accidentally bought a can of organic BAKED BEANS instead of black beans, but it was too late to stop cooking so I went ahead to make my soup anyway. Beans are beans, whatever. Plus, I’ve been bitten by the cold bug, so I’m craving for something soupy and sour.  I’ll post Trader Joe’s original recipe first, and then I’ll share my modified recipe.

• 2 cups of diced onions
• 1 clove of garlic
• 2 tbsp olive oil
• 1 tsp cumin
• 1 (15oz) can black beans, undrained
• 1 cup chunky salsa
• 2 tbsp fresh lime juice
• Plain yogurt

OK, here’s how mine was put together, and I gotta tell you, this is the AWESOMEST soup I’ve made in a long time. I might just keep this recipe for our office’s annual chili cookoff… hehe…

Ingredients

• 2 tbsp olive oil
• 2 cups vegetable broth
• 1/2 chopped large sweet onion (2 cups of chopped celery if prefer to not use onion)
• 1 (15oz) can baked beans with sauce
• 2 tsp English curry powder (because I didn’t have cumin)
• 2 cups chopped tomatoes (because I prefer using fresh ingredients whenever I can, so no pre-made salsa for me)
• 3 chopped jalapenos
• 1/2 tsp dried Mexican oregano
• 1/2 tsp garlic powder 
• 1 juiced fresh lime (more if you like it sour)
• Salt to season
• Chopped cilantro for garnish (more to cook in soup if preferred)
•  Plain yogurt

Method

1. Saute onions in olive oil until semi-soft.
2. Add curry powder or cumin, Mexican oregano and jalapenos and cook until soft.
3. Pour in baked beans and its sauce, tomatoes and vegetable broth.
4. Stir to combine and simmer for 20 minutes.
5. Turn off the heat and add in lime juice.
6. Season with salt and garlic powder.
7. Garnish with a dollop of yogurt and cilantro.

Chinese Seaweed Dumpling Soup

I had to clarify that this is “Chinese” style of seaweed soup, because the Japanese and Koreans have their own version using wakame seaweed instead. The Chinese seaweed are sold in a cake and dehydrated.

I pretty much “freestyled” this popular soup, whereby I boiled slices of ginger in a pot of vegetable broth and water. You can also add sliced shitake or Chinese mushrooms to this soup, but I did not have any prepared ahead of them (the dehrydrated kind). I added a generous heap of seaweed, vegetarian fishballs and leftover dumplings into the boiling pot of ginger infused broth. When the dumplings and fishballs are cooked, I tossed in a few handfuls of mixed peas for some colour and contrast with the black sea of seaweed. Season with salt, vegetable seasoning and lots of pepper.

Prep & cooking time: 15 – 20 minutes

Spinach Egg Drop Soup with Fresh Tofu

Because outside looked like this today (see below), Andy demanded that we have a big pot of soup on the stove to survive this historic day. The news reported that this storm system is the worse in decades, and being in Windsor, i.e. the southernmost part of Canada, it is not typical for us to get over a foot of snow in a day.

Soup was easy to make. We simply boil a pot of water (or broth) and added fresh spinach into the pot when the water starts to boil. We then turned the heat way down to avoid overcooking the vegetables, and tossed in sliced fresh white mushrooms. After letting the mushroom soften in the pot, we added seasoned the pot of soup with vegetable seasoning, salt, and white pepper. Just before turning off the heat, we added in beaten eggs and cubed fresh tofu. We added a dash of soy sauce and a few cracks of the black pepper grinder and that was it!