Matt has been asking for a bean soup and I didn’t get around to making it last week,so I decided to make it last night for dinner. I didn’t follow any recipe– just made it up as I went along according to taste and what I thought it needed:

Three Bean Soup

2 TB olive oil

1 stalk of celery, chopped

1 medium onion, chopped

3 cloves of garlic, minced

1 red bell pepper, diced

1 green bell pepper, diced

2 jalapeños, minced

1 cup corn kernels, fresh, frozen or canned

6 cups veg stock

1 can cannellini beans

1 can black beans

1 can pinto beans

2 TB chili powder

1 tsp cumin

1 1/2 tsp oregano

1/4 tsp cayenne pepper

In a large soup pot, heat the olive oil over medium heat. Add the celery, onion, bell peppers, jalapeños, and garlic and cook for a few minutes until they start to get tender. Add the stock and spices and cook for about an hour. When the stock has reduced a bit, add the beans and cook another 30 minutes until the soup begins to thicken a bit. At the last minute, add the corn and taste for seasoning. Add S&P if needed.

Ours was garnished with some diced avocado lightly dressed with some lime juice, S&P, and cilantro. On the side, we had a big piece of vegan cornbread from The Joy of Vegan Baking. No picture of the cornbread, sorry. It was really good and I ate mine before I thought to take a photo of it. Matt loved the both the soup and the cornbread, and I will definitely be adding this to our list of regulars.

One note: some may be concerned about the heat level of this dish, considering that it has jalapeños and cayenne in it. It was probably almost a medium by my standards. If you are worried about that, leave out the jalapeños and/or the cayenne, but it wasn’t that spicy as is.