Carrot & Black Bean Soup

This soup started with a recipe that I got from the Food Network. Melissa D'arabian (The Next Food Network Star) has a recipe for Orange-Scented Carrot Soup.

I thought it sounded good, but guessed that it could be improved upon with some extra ingredients.

I think I was right.

The ingredients:

1lb carrots, 1 medium onion, 3 garlic cloves, 1 orange (for zest), dried thyme, 2 cans chicken broth, 1 can black beans, 2 cups shredded (or chopped) pork, sour cream, S&P.

First you want to shred the carrots. I've said it before & I'll say it again...if you don't have a serrated peeler, get one!!

Chop 'em up,

Next, chop up the onion.  If you're old school, do it with a knife.  However, if you'd rather be done with it in about 30 seconds w/o tears, use a Food Chopper (PC of course!)

A few smacks on the top and you're done. 

I highly recommend this tool if you have children.  It allows you to get your anger...um, frustration...out without feeling like you've lost control.  :)

Now for the garlic. Take 3 cloves...

Place each clove under the blade of a knife...

...and smash it!

This will make the skin practically fall off.

Do this with all 3 cloves and then chop them up finely.

Alrighty. Throw the carrots & onion into a stock pot with about a tbsp of oil (I forgot to put oil in the ingredient pic...sorry!)

Let it cook over medium heat for about 5 minutes...until it starts to soften. Keep stirring it around to avoid burning the onions.

Add the orange zest. I just did mine right over the pot.

Then add the garlic & the tsp of thyme.

Mix it all together and cook for another 5 minutes. Then you want to add the chicken broth & 1 1/2 cups of water.

Bring it to a full boil, reduce the heat and let it simmer for about 15 minutes.

Then you pour it into a blender.

You have to be VERY careful when blending a hot liquid.  You need to give it room to expand or else the top will blow off and you'll have burning hot carrot soup EVERYWHERE. I learned this when making a sauce for tacos once. Not fun.

So here's what you do.  Take the little plastic (mine is plastic at least) part off of the lid.

Hold a towel over it.

Use the pulse setting (if you have one...if not then blend off & on...off & on) to make sure that you get all the chunks. Blend it until it's nice & smooth and looks something like this:

Drain & rinse the black beans.  Add them to the soup.

Then you want to add the pork.  My pork was left over from when I made the pork tacos.  It's the meat from one pork chop.

Add S&P to taste and then let it cook for another 5 minutes or so until everything is heated through.

Serve it with a plop of sour cream. (I mixed mine up afterwards to make it creamy).

It was VERY well received by all.

My husband suggested throwing some baked tortilla strips on top.  I think that would be a fabulous addition to it.  It was a really great soup...very filling. And super cheap!

:)