Sweet Potato Biscuits, Black Bean Soup, White Bean Soup

Ok, three recipes coming up:

SWEET POTATO BISCUITS - about 5 or 6 biscuits
1/2 c all-purpose flour
1/2 c whole wheat pastry flour
1 1/2 tsp baking powder
1/4 tsp salt
2 tbsp unsalted butter, cold
1/3 c milk
1/3 cup mashed sweet potato (or a bit more if you like)

Preheat oven to 450 degrees.
In medium bowl combine flours, baking powder and salt. mix well.
Cut butter into small pieces and add to flour mixture. Using fingertips work GENTLY until flour has consistency of cornmeal. Don't push and press on it too much or the biscuits will come out hard.
In small bowl mix milk and sweet potato and mash with fork. Add this to flour mixture and stir quickly with hands till it forms a ball. Turn dough onto floured suface and knead gently. Do not overwork the dough.
Pat down out until it is 1/2 thick. (The height of your thumb knuckle, roughly)
Cut into rounds with biscuit cutter until all dough is used. Place on cookie sheet.
Bake 8-10 minutes or until bottoms of biscuits are golden brown.

Yummy with honey...

BLACK BEAN SOUP 4 servings
2 tsp veg oil
1 small onion (1/2 cup chopped)
1 clove garlic crushed
1 can stewed tomatoes
1 can black beans (15 oz)
1/2 cup broth
1/4 tsp cumin
1/4 tsp coriander

Cook onion and garlic in olive oil
In blender, process tomatoes and half the beans. Add to onion mix in saucepan. Stir in remaining beans, broth, cumin, coriander.
Top with cheese, sour cream, avocado etc.

WHITE BEAN SOUP
Ok, I have a confession, we got this recipe from a family friend, but we don't actually have THE recipe, we kind of make it up...but it works really easily.

1 med onion, chopped
4ish stalks of celery chopped
1 can of white beans (your choice)
2 tbsp olive oil
1 can of chicken broth

Saute onions and celery (if you don't like chunks of the veggies, puree them after sauteing, but i like the crunch. see the pic of the soup in my previous post for the size of the veggies).
Add can of chicken broth
Add beans (rinsed and drained of course)
Add 2 tbsp olive oil (you could make it without this step, but trust me it makes a huge flavor difference)

That's it! Just let it simmer...

A Flight of Soups

So my mom asked if I wanted to make soup for dinner, and I had this brillant idea to make a flight of soups instead of just one. We always freeze our leftover soup in single servings in a round tupperware so we can take them to work. Soup is my favorite food to make. Probably because it's so easy and all goes in one spot, but also because I'm a sucker for anything that starts out "saute chopped onions, garlic and celery in olive oil or butter."

but I digress.

The following soups are from top to bottom, left to right: Pea soup (with chives on it) Black Bean soup (with jalapeno cheddar cheese and a dollop of sour cream), White Bean soup, and Pureed Chickpea soup. (Do I see a pattern here ? I love beans...) My favorite is definitely a tie between the White Bean and the Black Bean. (ha!!) My dad doesn't like beans, so we made the pea soup for him, but I did not particuarly care for it. The chickpea soup was sort of like eating hummus , but runny...sorry that sounds gross, it's not bad, if you like hummus..a lot. I'll take a poll: which recipe do you want me to post: I don't feel like typing them all up right now, but if requested, I certainly will!

The best thing about these soups, ladies..(and gents..if any read this) is they all took like lesss than 15 m ins each to make and have very few ingredients and similar seasonings. Super convenient for quick meals.

So you may be asking what you would eat with these soups for dinner? Aside from salad, the usual side in our house, INSTEAD, we made sweet potato biscuits (yum with honey!) Also my mom sliced up avocado and drizzled some balsamic vinagrette on them, that was SO good!! Or you could go the traditional route and get all Italian and buy French bread. Whatever you prefer. So let me know which soup recipes you want me to post and I'll do so!