Southwestern Black Bean Soup with Homemade Vegetable Stock

Halloween night dinner deserves a dark and spicy dish, and that is exactly what this meal turned out to be! Mr. Sexy Veggie and I traveled to Sister Veggie and Veggie 2.0's house for a fun Halloween evening, and I took a soup from the cookbook to share!

The base of the soup is VEGETABLE STOCK, another recipe from the cookbook. This was an easy and beautiful base to make, and it smelled wonderful while it was cooking. Onions, scallions, garlic, carrots, parsley, and mushrooms are boiled in water, along with some soy sauce and nutmeg. It boils for an hour, and then the vegetables are poured into a strainer set over a large bowl, and the excess water is pressed out by pushing a wooden spoon on the cooked veggies.

The main course of the evening was SOUTHWESTERN BLACK BEAN SOUP. This soup is thick and spicy. Black beans are cooked with onions, garlic, and green pepper in the homemade vegetable stock for 1.5 hours. Half of the soup is pureed in a food processor and returned to the soup, to add some thicker consistency. Lime juice and salt are stirred in right before serving to add a burst of flavor!

The soup was great! All four of us enjoyed it. We ate it with quesadillas and blue corn chips, and sprinkled cheese on top of the soup. This is a great cold weather meal, and I will be making it again!