Pinto bean soup - vegan

Remember those beans we harvested, peeled, and packaged the other week? I'm using those and making me some delicious Portuguese inspired bean soup this week. Typically the traditional Portuguese soup will call for meat and sausages, but we are skipping those. Instead, we are doing it vegan style, which means crunch, flavor, fresh, and bright colors! Beautiful and nutritious, what else can one ask for? 

In case you missed my bean harvest and prep adventure, check it out here: https://www.eatwithjia.com/2020/08/pinto-beans-summer-vegetable-prep.html Ok now onto making the bean soup.

What you need:

- 1 lb of pinto beans

- 3 carrots (cubed)

- 3 potatoes (cubed)

- 1/2 of white onion (cubed)

- 3-4 bay leafs

- 1 sprig of oregano

- S and P to taste

- 3 cloves of garlic (sliced)

- a handful of cilantro leaves (roughly chopped)

- 4 cups of water or vegetable stock

- 1 tbsp of vegetable oil

- 1 pack of cherry tomatoes

Recipe:

- heat up vegetable oil in a deep pan/pot, throw in the garlic, onion, oregano, and bay leaves to stir fry on med-high until the onions are cooked through.

- add carrots, potatoes, stir fry for 2-3 min. add the pinto beans. 

- add water/vegetable stock and bring the pot to boil, turn heat to med-low to keep a low simmer.

- cover the pot and let it simmer for 40-45 min, stir occasionally. Add the tomatoes after 30 min. Try a pinto bean and make sure it's cooked through.

 

- add salt and pepper as needed. serve with some chopped cilantro and home made focaccia. (try this recipe here https://www.eatwithjia.com/2020/07/focaccia-v2-from-liguria.html) You got yourself a nice hearty meal. 

Note:

If your beans were store bought and dried, you'd need to boil it for much longer. Those things need to be first soaked over night, then boiled for about an hour to hour and half. Fresh pinto beans like the ones we use today get cooked through faster, 40-45 min should do. If you use canned beans, you only need to cook them for about 15 min. Depends on what you are using, adjust time accordingly. Overcooking isn't the end of the world however, it just means the soup is thicker as the bean skin begins to break and the starch is releasing into the soup - so you get a stew-like creamier consistency. 

These bean soup can be used for many different stews, soups, chili, curries, or simply cooked and ready to top a salad. This is just one way to use these wonderfully colorful ingredients. Many more to come, I'm sure.