Black bean soup

I feel like you don't see bean soup very often around Tucson because all the beans are refried. And this is fine, I would never ever complain about refried beans, but sometimes soup is good too. The thing about making black bean soup, though, is that you toe the line of making refried beans so there's a point in the process where you could go either way: add some broth and make it more soupy or cook the beans down to something thicker. But maybe it's nice to have some built-in choices, right? Why should we be shackled to the idea we started with?

You might be able to tell from the recipe instructions, but I kind of made this up. Do what you feel with it.

Black bean soup

3-5 slices bacon
2 lbs. dried black beans, or slightly more
1-2 onions
2-3 carrots
1-3 chipotle peppers
cloves of garlic, as many as you want
2 bay leaves
1-2 tbsp. coriander seeds
some stock, any kind, if you have it
1-3 tsp. white vinegar
salt

First, in a large pot, cook the bacon. Now your soup is guaranteed to be delicious.

Add everything but the stock. Add other things if you want. Then put enough water in the pot to cover everything, and then a bit more. Bring to a boil, cover, simmer until the beans are cooked—maybe an hour.

Once the beans are cooked, look at how much liquid is left in that pot. Take out the bay leaves. Did you change your mind and just want to make beans and forget the soup? Do it! Just mash the beans up and cook the liquid away.

But if you really want to make soup, add some stock, maybe a cup or two. Puree with immersion or regular blender. Reconsider how liquid your soup is and add stock—or water—as you think is necessary. Salt to taste.

Now, here's a handy trick: taste your soup, add a little vinegar, and taste it again. Acid makes a difference! The soup will taste more. I find that if I ever taste something and I think that it's good but needs something else, but I don't really know what else, that a little vinegar is probably the right choice.

My soup looked like this:


And was served like this, with sweet potatoes in the middle and a drizzle of plain yogurt, with a cornbread muffin on the side:


And, the next day, because, really, the soup bore an amazing resemblance to just regular beans, I soaked some toast in the soup and ended up with molletes (melted cheese on top, not yogurt):