Mexican Black Bean Soup
Black bean soups and chilis are great food for the winter, because they’re rich and hearty and the spiciness warms you from the inside out. They also reheat fabulously, for those with smaller households or who like to bring their lunch.
This soup is on the thin side as written on the book (with an extra cup of water), but I like my soups on the thicker side. I’m totally guilty of using up half a package of saltines in thin soups to get it to the consistency I like. The photo above was taken on the third eating of the soup, so it’s really starting to thicken up.
Southwest meatballs with green chile sauce
Living in New Mexico, you learn that green chile (the pepper, or the sauce) goes with everything. I love a good chile (sauce, or pepper), and when I read today’s paper and found this recipe for southwest meatballs, I said to myself: Self, this meatball recipe looks good… but it’s missing something. Oh yes! Chile! That is the solution!
Since I’m back in Iowa (where, unlike the anti-Mexican cuisine grocery stores of Ohio, even the small ones stock a pretty hefty Hispanic aisle and usually carry three or four kinds of fresh chiles and two or three kinds of canned), I actually had everything I needed in the pantry (or was a quick visit to the neighborhood store away).
Anyway, the way we ate them was by cutting up the meatballs individually, putting them on tortillas, and then smothered with chile and cheese, and rolled up like burritos. Quite delicious!
Read More