Something to warm the cockles of your heart

Well, maybe to just warm your tummy

– some delicious 15 bean soup

yummy, just the ticket for a cold, blustery winter evening!

Until 3D printing gets a little more advanced, you just have to fix it yourself and here is how we do it.

Start with about a pound of beans. We used a bag that contained 15 varieties. Actually not all were true beans, the bag included split peas, lentils, garbanzo beans. No matter, all are great for making soup. If you just have one variety that will work too.

Cooking beans takes time. The traditional way is to soak them overnight, but it is faster to boil the rinsed beans in 8 cups of water for an hour.

What makes this soup really delicious are the additional ingredients. A pound or so of chicken, we use boneless, skinless chicken breasts, maybe another pound of sausage, this time genuine Cajun sausage. And the “seasonings”, as my Southern cooking mentor would call them, onion, garlic, carrots and celery. My formula is “1234”, one onion, two cloves of garlic, three carrots, and four celery stalks, all cut up bite-size.

While the beans are boiling, I chop the other items. The onions are sautéed in a couple spoonful butter or olive oil. When the onions start to turn translucent, I add the chicken and cook until the chicken meat is all white. Then the rest of the ingredients are added and cooked a little bit longer. This gets everything nice and hot and won’t stop the beans from cooking.

Everything is added together. Another two cups of water are also added at this point and some chicken bouillon, or you can use chicken broth in place of the water. We like our soup quite thick – closer to stew than traditional soup. You may wish to add a little more water. Now allow everything to simmer another hour or so.

This makes plenty soup. But remember, left-over soup is even more delicious the second day.

Mmmm … I can smell it already.

Bon appétit!

So what’s with the food articles, you ask? Café Ludwig is supposed to be about photography! Well, the five photos here should qualify. They were taken with great care. Lighting was on-camera flash, just to illustrate that this can work beautifully. Photos were diligently post-processed in Photo Gallery and Picasa.

The food post idea was inspired by my friends Beatrice and Grenville over at The Frog and PequINN who have provided delightful stories, mouth-watering food photos, and neighborly shares of recipes. So this post is dedicated to them with a tip of the hat and a nod of appreciation and admiration. Do pay them a visit, you too will be enchanted!

.:.

© 2013 Ludwig Keck