RECIPE: Chicken and Bean Soup

I like Sunday afternoons to be lazy. I like everything I do to be easily accomplished within the confines of my apartment, preferably within the confines of my futon. If I must leave, it had better be somewhere I can walk to. Besides laying around reading or watching TV, another thing I like to do is cook.

I have two goals for this month. I am dieting in order to slim down in preparation for my trip to Japan at the end of the month. I also have a lot of work to finish up before I leave for said trip, so I need to make things easy for myself, since I probably won't have a lot of free time.

So this Sunday I spent the afternoon making a gigantor batch of soup to provide me with ready made meals throughout the week. I based the recipe on a chicken and hominy soup I found in Bon Appetit. I used beans instead of hominy for a more European style soup.


First. Before you make anything, you need a refreshing drink to help you. Because it's Sunday, and I am still feeling Italian after my dinner at Mozza last night, I used Prosecco as my liquid sous chef. I think it really helped.

The first thing you need to do is prep your ingredients:

• 3 tbsp. olive oil
• 3 bunches green onions, sliced
• 4 tsp. ground cumin
• 2 1/2 tsp. smoked paprika
• 10 cups low-salt chicken broth
• 1 can whole peeled tomatoes
• 1 purchased roast chicken, meat shredded, skin and bones discarded
• 4 tsp. Tabasco sauce
• 1 can cannellini beans
• 1 can great northern beans
• 1 cup chopped fresh cilantro.
  

I purchased my chicken from Erewhon market. Despite the fact that it's a health food store that caters to vegetarian, vegan and macrobiotic diets, they have excellent rotisserie chicken here. It comes in "rotisserie," rosemary, jamaican, and lemon garlic. They didn't have a whole rotisserie, so I purchased rosemary, which turned out to have a nice flavor for the soup. The dog helped me by eating the skin and the husband helped me by tasting the chicken to make sure it was okay.

Now it's time to start cooking. Heat the oil in a large heavy pot over medium-high heat. Add the green onions, cumin and paprika and saute for five minutes. This is about the time your house will begin to smell delicious. Once the onions are sauteed, add broth, tomatoes, chicken, tabasco and beans and then bring the soup to a boil.

Mmm. Delicious. But its not ready yet. Reduce the heat and simmer for 15 minutes. Then add the cilantro, ladle into bowls and serve.

The soup turns out to be a hearty bowl that's a nice winter dinner. The husband, who is naturally thin and doesn't need to be dieting, added rice to his, which I think turned out well.

The recipe makes 8 servings, so I now have enough for several meals throughout the week as well.