#3: A nice enough soup, but not up to Fall & Winter standards

 Served with a lovely winter salad and vegan cornbread.

Daughter C is learning how to take photos. She took this one– which is nicely staged or whatever the photographers’ word for that is– and the one above. Somewhere between the soup pic & this, she changed camera settings.

This is a gimp-ed (photo-shop-for-free, see HOW TO GIMP link in the sidebar) version. In COLOR BALANCE, I toned down green to -45 in mid-tones only. And in AUTO I let gimp correct the white balance. I’m certainly no artist, but I like the L-R contrast of green salad vs. blue pot holders.

As I type, the temperature is hovering around 40°F, likely to drop to around freezing in just a few hours, and it’s precipitating. It’s nasty out there. A perfect night for soup.

The flavor of this soup is wonderful.

Briefly– I’ll post the recipe as Mr. Big Food’s time allows– it’s three cans of beans. We used light red kidneys, baby and speckled butters. Drain them. The recipe calls for 1 qt. of water so we used 1 qt. of bean broth saved from last evening’s green bean dish. (Sneak those vitamins and mineral in there any way you can!) Heat the beans and broth. Separately, saute some diced onions and carrots in 2T vegan butter (Earth Balance®). Add 2T flour, S&P, paprikka, and a dash of tobacco. Stir that into the simmering beans.

Mr. Big Food and A. Leland didn’t arrive home until 7pm this evening. I let the soup simmer at this stage until the dogs announced their arrival. I then heated 2C almond milk and stirred that into the soup. The recipe calls for the soup to then boil, stirring constantly. I didn’t let it come back to a boil. Nearly. But not quite.

Here’s my analysis. We veganized the heck out of it so I can’t comment on what it might have been like had we used milk. The flavor was surprisingly good. (Almond milk is a much better substitute for milk than soy milk, by the way.) But it was thin. And here I mean that, yes, it was a thin broth, and maybe some processing of the beans & roux before the milk addition would have creamed it up, but I don’t think so.

For me, it’s more of an early spring soup. Hearty enough for March,– portending of lighter fare– but not Fall & Winter. But it was delicious!

Here’s the score so far, keeping in mind that Daughter C did not partake of #2 and Miss M did not vote this evening.

Hot Potato Soup is the winner and Mr. Big Food suffers from ‘recency bias.’

Be sure to check out the Tab (look up) for the 2013/14 Fall & Winter Soup Contest for recipes from this and previous contests.