Festive Black Bean Chili

2 cups chopped onions

2 cloves garlic, minced or presses

1/2 cup water

1 Tablespoon ground cumin

1 Tablespoon ground coriander

1 cup prepared Mexican-style red salsa

2 red and/or green bell peppers, chopped

3 cups cooked black beans (two 15 ounce cans, drained and rinsed)

3 cups canned whole tomatoes, with juice (28 ounce can) 2 cups fresh or

frozen corn kernels (11 ounce package)

salt to taste

Tabasco or other hot pepper sauce to taste

1/4 cup chopped fresh cilantro. or to taste

In a covered soup pot, cook the onions and garlic in the water on high heat, stirring frequently, for about 5 minutes. Add the cumin and coriander and stir on high heat for about a minute. Stir in the salsa and bell peppers, lower the heat, cover, and simmer for about 5 minutes, stirring occasionally. Add the black beans and tomatoes, simmer for 10 minutes. Add the corn and continue to cook for 10 minutes. Add the salt and Tabasco to taste. Stir in the cilantro.

TIM"S NOTES: I like red bell peppers, but it occurs to me there is too much of the same color in this chili. Orange or yellow peppers might be used as well for some color variation. As always, I don't like the big chunks of tomato in my finished product, so I puree them. You may not want to go this far, but I would at least buy diced tomatoes instead of whole. In the short amount of cooking time, I just don't think the tomatoes have a chance to break up. Again, in place of the Tabasco, I added a little chipotle puree, which can be found elsewhere in this blog. The recipe also says this chili can be served over rice or polenta. I like it plain.

Cream of Tomato Soup

5 Tablespoons butter

1 carrot, peeled and chopped very fine

1/4 medium onion, chopped fine

1/4 cup flour

2 cups milk
1 Tablespoon tomato paste

1 (28 ounce) can diced tomatoes, undrained

1/4 teaspoon salt

1/4 teaspoon pepper

1 1/2 teaspoons dried dill weed

1 1/2 teaspoons dried basil

2 teaspoons Worcestershire sauce

1/4 teaspoon baking soda

1 Tablespoon lemon juice

Tabasco sauce (optional)

Melt butter in large, heavy saucepan and add carrot and onion. Saute until soft. Stir in flour. Cook and stir for about 5 minutes more. Gradually add milk and stir until soup is smooth. Blend in tomato paste, stirring until smooth. Stir in tomatoes, salt, pepper, dill weed, basil, Worcestershire sauce, and baking soda. Stir in lemon juice and add Tabasco to taste. Keep stirring until soup is piping hot.

Note: Adding the tomato paste and tomatoes after the milk makes the soup less likely to curdle. The soda counteracts some of the acidity, also reducing the likelihood of curdling. However, if you add too much soda, the soup will have a bland flavor. If this happens, add a little more lemon juice and taste for seasoning.

TIM'S NOTES: I have a simpler tomato soup recipe that is also good (which I may post later) but I like this one because the flavor is slightly more complex. Since I don't particularly care for big chunks of tomato in my soups and sauces, I pureed the soup in the blender so it would be smooth. I chopped the carrot and onion really fine in the food processor; so if you didn't want to puree the finished soup, you might then puree the tomatoes before adding. This would also make the finished soup smoother, and would save that final step of pureeing the whole soup. I found this soup needed a couple more pinches of salt, but you be the judge. You can either add a little more salt to the soup, or let people season their own individual portions as they like.