Some Like it Blended

To celebrate our snowy wonderland, we made a very very vegetable-y navy bean soup. We had a whole slew of vegetables from the Union Square market so we chopped and shredded and prepared them all while the navy beans were soaking. We started by chopping up a leek, a clove of garlic, a small piece of ginger, and two small yellow onions. Then, we moved on to root vegetables, adding a parsnip, two carrots, daikon radish and celery root, all diced. Then, Perry sliced shitake mushrooms neatly for us. A lesson in making long skinny pieces of kale, napa cabbage, spinach and mustard greens ensued. I can't help myself, I just enjoy the soup more if the vegetables are cut properly. So, then we started by gently heating olive oil with the leek, garlic and onions and gave them a little head start. We moved on to dumping in the navy beans and the root vegetables with water and homemade vegetable broth. We let it all simmer away for almost 45 minutes, then added more broth and the green vegetables and mushrooms. I through in a handful of arame because I can't resist sneaking in a sea vegetable. We brought it back to a boil and let it cook another 15 minutes (the beans have to be soft!). The soup as it was had a basic home style flavor which, let's just say, is not what my family wants. So, we added paprika, cumin, sea salt and cayenne pepper. Then, there were shouts to please puree it (OK, some people are just obsessed with high powered blenders, well, I mean me), so I pureed half of it.

Then, to further the Southwestern style we were leaning toward, we topped our soup with a delicious pineapple salsa, cheater's style. I took a jar of medium Green Mountain Gringo salsa and added thinly sliced red onion and tiny pieces of finely diced pineapple. (We also used the pineapple salsa as a base for napa cabbage slaw the next day.)

In the end, five preferred blended; I was the holdout for traditional chunky soup but tasted it both ways. I blended all that was left and it was gobbled down for breakfast Sunday morning. To work off the soup, well, a lot of sledding, hiking, shoveling and walking in 30 plus inches of snow is quite the workout!

And, yes, I will eventually post my recipe for vegetable stock...