Super-Simple Bean Soup

Friday  in the early evening  Mystie

I created a soup for today’s dinner, and I am amazed at how tasty it really is. It wasn’t going to be a soup. We were going to have beans and cornbread ala Pioneer Woman. But my pinto beans, after cooking with two large beef bones all day, had made a very tasty broth and there was a lot of it left in the pan. The beans were already falling apart, there was too much liquid to boil down, and I wasn’t about to drain such liquid yumminess down the sink. So, it became Bean Soup.

Soak pinto beans (1/4 of the pot of beans, then fill to the brim with water) overnight. Next day, drain, and refill with fresh water and a tablespoon or so of salt. Add in one or two meat bones (I used beef this time, 2 large ones were $1.50). Bring to a boil, then simmer for at least 2 hours, but the longer the better. Refill with water if it starts to get low (doing this is why I had soup instead of stewy beans). Put a colander in a big bowl and separate the broth from the beans and bones. Pour the broth back into the pan and add in a generous portion of beans. Blend (I have an immersion blender for just such purposes), adding in more beans until you get a soup consistency you like. Add the remainder of the beans and any meat from the bones.

This tastes quite a bit like “Bean and Bacon” canned soup, but much better. I have a whole stockpot full, and I guess it’s probably about 3 dinners-worth, and all for hardly more than $2. We’re having ours today with corn bread & cabbage salad. A perfect peasant meal for a rainy day.

This entry was posted on Friday, November 20th, 2009 at 6:15 pm and is filed under Cook. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.