Winter in the South is mostly cold and rain. I’m glad not to have to deal with snow, especially with the huge dumps everyone back home are dealing with. The annoying part about so much rain is that the yard starts to turn to mush and mud. A happy place for the rambunctious Pepper, she got herself all full of mud! You should have seen how much I had to wash off of her.
I found this soup on Good Bite (.com) and made my version with what ingredients were available in my kitchen.
In the midst of chopping the sweet potato I heard, what I though was, rain. Shhhhh! Then a clank as if something heavy and half full hit the tile floor of the kitchen. To my surprise, Little Sister was busy cooking up something herself.
See why it sounded like rain – the rice gently pouring out of the container. And the bang was Little Sister dropping the container and watching it hit the floor. Little Sister is often milling around the kitchen, or around me rather, as breakfast, lunch or dinner is underway. I never shoo her out, unless I need to open the oven door, then she it picked up and placed safely in her high chair or distracted by something in the living room for the 30 seconds needed to complete my maneuver. I guess the latch on the rice container was hardly difficult for her to figure out!
Bokkie inspired the tag-along for the soup: salmon melts. Essentially the same idea as your typical tuna melt, only a can of wild salmon is swapped in for the tuna. Canned salmon, I thought would be uber-fishy, both in taste and smell, was not fishy at all. Actually, it’s less so than tuna. So there’s your encouragement for today – try canned wild salmon! Of course the best thing in the world would be a wild salmon, which you caught yourself and smoked – but that’s a whole other sandwich…
Sweet Potato & Black Bean Soup
Made after Julie Van Rosendaal’s Sausage, Black Bean, Sweet Potato Soup
- 1 good sized sweet potato, diced (the exact size is not the greatest concern – just make it all the SAME size)
- 1/2 yellow onion, diced
- pinch cumin seeds
- 1 can black beans, drained and rinsed
- 1 link chorizo sausage
- 3 tbsp hot salsa
- 1 cup chicken stock
- 1 cup water, or enough to cover the potatoes
- 1/4 cup crushed tomatillo
The tomatillo adds some acidity to round out the flavours of the sweet potato, smoky cumin and spicy salsa. If you don’t have them where you live, you can use a diced tomato and tablespoon of vinegar.
The salsa I used it not a typical off-the-shelf sauce, this is a very thin, hot and smoky sauce made in one of the Mexican grocery stores here. Hubby bought some with taco fixings as a quick weekday supper. It would otherwise sit in the fridge waiting to be tossed in a few weeks, or when I’m really in my pack-rat mood, I will freeze the leftovers. (There’s still about 3 small frozen containers of a similar style salsa in the freezer right now!) By all means, adjust the amount of salsa to the level of heat you desire.
I started the soup by browning the chorizo, then removing it to work on the onion. Once the onions are soft, add the cumin seeds to lightly warm them to release the oils. Add the chorizo back in as well as everything except the black beans. Bring the soup to a boil and simmer, covered, for 5-6 minutes. Turn down the heat to low and add the beans, salt and pepper to taste. Continue simmering for another minute or until the sweet potato pieces are tender (but not falling apart).
Salmon Melts
- 1 can wild caught salmon, drained
- 1 slice of red onion, diced fine
- 3 tbsp light mayonnaise
- shredded cheese of choice (I used a Mexican Blend, good cheddar would work too)
- salt and pepper
Mix the salmon, mayo, onion, salt and pepper in a bowl. Turn on the broiler to low. The platform of the open-faced sandwiches were slices of my olive-rosemary bread, lightly toasted under the broiler, just until stiff but not browned. Then I buttered the toast, slathered on the salmon mixture, sprinkled with cheese and returned the pan under the broiler. When the cheese melts, they are done!
Those look delicious! Never ever thought of mixing salmon with mayo? Must have been stunning. It is quite an oily fish so you could probably get away with no mayo….. for those calorie conscious individuals. Haha.
Pepper is absolutely gorgeous!!!!
xx
thanks Bokkie 🙂 The canned salmon I have is packed in water, not oil, and it’s not really oily fish. I was surprised how fluffy it was actually. And yeah, you could just have the cheese hold the salmon on there, skip the mayo bit!
I am going to try that sweet potato and black bean soup! We still have LOTS of sp to use up from the garden. Me thinks we planted enough to feed a family of six … 🙂
PS – I will let you know how it turns out
Please do! By all means use this as a guide, I would have added a second sweet potato if I knew how good it was going to be! The sausage isn’t really necessary either, a nice salsa and the cumin is all the flavour you really need to get the gist of this soup. Enjoy!
I really enjoyed this! It was a nice break-away from our regular preparation of sweet potatoes. However, Country Man is a meat and potatoes kinda guy, and while he liked it enough, I think he prefers meat on one side of the plate, potatoes on the other. Oh well, it will definitely be made again! Any excuse to use cumin is good by me 🙂 Did your family like it?
Little Sister was probably most impressed. She ate every black bean on her high chair table! Big Brother liked the sweet potato best. Hubby and I enjoyed the whole thing, plus I had some for lunch at work 🙂 This recipe will be a keeper. Do you have any ideas on modifications?
Another thing to try is sweet potato hash. There’s a post in here somewhere about that, I made Chef Anne Burrell’s version.
Yummy! I might have to try something like this – my husband doesn’t really like sweet potatoes despite how good they are for you…
I love your puppy! So cute! 🙂
I love sweet potatoes and I’m always wanting to incorporate them. Don’t get me wrong, a nice baked sweet potato on its own is awesome! In this soup, they provide a nice bite and contrast to the spices. I love my puppy too 😉
I baked the salmon in the oven the night before with SP and the maple balsamic vinaigrette that I had leftover from my guest post when I made a while ago and it went fantastically well over salad greens some red onion cucs red pepper julienned carrots and Dill from .
That sounds delicious Jamar!