Slow cooker black bean soup

The past week was fairly easy when it came to cooking-- basically I made a big batch of chili and spaghetti sauce early in the week, and we had a lot of leftovers. This wasn't by accident, dear hubby and I had a crazy week at work. That being said, I didn't have time to try out any new recipes this week, so I'm writing about a soup a made a few weeks ago: Slow Cooker Black Bean Chipotle Soup. I know, I know, we eat a lot of beans, but they're cheap and taste good (not to mention they are good for you). This recipe has a lot of ingredients, and basically all you do is through them in a slow cooker, turn it on and leave it alone. This was another recipe recommended by my mother-- I think she found it in a Rival Slow Cooker cook book. I've made a couple modifications to my version.

You do have to precook the dry black beans or you could soak the beans overnight to soften them up, too.

The veggies: carrot, celery, and onion.

The veggies with salsa, canned green chiles, black beans, cumin, and chipotles in adobe.

Make it a soup by adding stock.

The finished product (I used an immersion blender to smooth out the soup a bit).

 It's great served with some cheese on top, and sour cream would be good, too. Also excellent served with tortilla chips (I like to tear up flour tortillas and bake them in the oven-- they're great for dipping into the soup).

Here's the list of ingredients and instructions for Slow Cooker Black Bean Chipotle Soup.

1 lb. dry black beans

2 stalks of celery, diced

2 carrots, peeled and diced

1 onion, diced

1-2 tsp. of pureed chipotle in adobe OR 1-2 canned chipotle in adobe peppers

1 cup of salsa (I like to use medium)

1-4 oz. can of mild green chilies, drained

2 tsp cumin

Salt & pepper to taste (Don;t add the salt until AFTER the beans have cooked in the soup. If you add the salt at the beginning, the beans will end up gritty. Take my word for it.)

3-4 cups of chicken broth or stock (depends on how thick/thin you like your soup)

Rinse and sort black beans. Cover beans with cool water in a saucepan. Bring to a boil and boil for 2 minutes. Remove from heat and let stand for 1 hour. Drain and rinse. Add the beans to the slow coooker and add the resto of the ingredients except for the salt and pepper. Stir to combine. Cook on LOW for 7-8 hours or on HIGH for 4 1/2-5 hours, or until beans are tender.

Add salt and pepper.

You may leave the soup chunky or puree to desired consistency with an immersion blender.

Three in one: Nutty for Oats Cookies

In our house, the end of one batch of cookies brings about a great culinary conundrum: What kind of cookies to bake next? My favorite cookies are chocolate chip. My husband's favorite: peanut butter. Oatmeal are always a good choice because they're kind of healthy since they're made with oatmeal and fruit. What to do? What to do?

We finished off the chocolate chip cookies a couple of weeks ago, the double fudge brownies have been eaten or given away, so I began looking through cook books trying to find a new cookie recipe to try. Then I happened upon Nutty for Oats Cookies in King Arthur Flour's Whole Grain Baking. These cookies promised the best of three worlds: peanut butter, chocolate chip, and oatmeal. Not to mention they're fairly easy to throw together.

I began by getting the baking sheets ready, simply lining them with parchment paper. With the oven preheating to 350 degrees, I started mixing the ingredients.

Like almost every other cookie, you have to cream together the butter, sugar, and vanilla. This recipe also requires creaming the peanut butter, salt, and baking soda. Then I added two eggs.

I had just enough peanut butter for the recipe...

Not sure how I'll handle a week without peanut butter (at least there's cashew butter in the fridge!)...

The batter before you add the oat flour.

Next, I ground up 1 cup of old-fashioned oats in the food processor, and mixed the ground up oats and whole oats with the butter/sugar mixture.

A mini food processor is great for grinding up the oats.

The batter before the addition of chocolate/raisins.

At this point I had to alter the recipe. I didn't have the two cups of chocolate chips called for by the recipe, so I divided the batter in half. In one half, I added a cup of bittersweet chocolate chips, and then added a cup of raisins to the other half. Two kinds of cookies from one basic batter!

Chocolate cookie before baking.

Raisin cookie before baking.

First, I baked the chocolate chip cookies for 11 minutes. The cookies just started to brown when I pulled them from the oven. Usually, I let cookies cool for a couple of minutes on the pans, and then transfer them to a rack to cool. This recipe calls for letting the cookies cool completely on the pan. I think this is because the cookies aren't quite cooked all the way through when you pull them from the oven, and they need the heat of the pan to finish baking. Not one to mess up a batch of cookies, I followed the recipe's instructions.

I transferred the first cookies to a rack after they cooled so I could finish the next batch.

Then I finished up by baking the raisin batch.

These cookies are really really really good, especially the chocolate chip version. Since I used bittersweet chocolate, they weren't super sweet, but you could really appreciate the peanut butter and chocolate flavor. They are thick, soft and chewy-- everything a cookie should be. (Not sure what the appeal of eating a crunchy cookie is, they're basically just a cracker at that point).

Here's the measurements for the ingredients. I really hope you try these out!

King Arthur Flour's Nutty for Oats Cookies
2/3 cup smooth peanut butter
4 Tbsp. (1/2 stick) unsalted butter
3/4 cup packed brown sugar
1 tsp. vanilla extract
1/2 tsp. salt
1/4 tsp. baking soda
2 large eggs
1 cup old-fashioned rolled oats, ground for 30 seconds in a food processor
1 1/2 cups old-fashioned rolled oats
2 cups chocolate chips (may substitute dry fruit)

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Line two baking sheets with parchment paper.

Cream together the peanut butter, butter, brown sugar, vanilla, salt, and baking soda. Then add the eggs, one at a time, until well incorporated. Mix in the oats, and then add the chocolate chips.

Using a tablespoon (or small ice cream scoop) drop the cookies onto the baking pan.

Bake the cookies for 11 to 13 minutes, until the edges just start to brown. Remove from the oven and allow the cookies to cool completely on the pan.