Okay, this was pretty good! It was Thursday night, which means the big meal weekend was just around the corner (and does, in fact, start tonight). Because of that, I feel, Thursday meals should be moderately light. I look through the cabinet — let’s see, beans, chicken stock…hmmmm…soup? Why yes, some kind of soup would be good, I thought.
As I stood there pondering, it came to me — garbanzo bean soup! Why not? I like hummus. I’ll just make more of it and make it a soup-like consistency! It was pretty tasty but honestly, the “toppings” made it really, really tasty.
Oh and if there’s more than two people, you’d seriously want to double this up, as it only made two medium-sized bowls.
Creamy Garbanzo Bean Soup:
1 can garbanzo beans, drained
1 cup chicken stock (more if needed for desired consistency)
1 tsp olive oil
3 cloves garlic, roughly chopped
1/4 of an onion, diced
juice of half a lemon
1 tsp tahini
Spices: cumin, paprika, oregeno, cayenne pepper (just a sprinkle of each and then to taste — an extra small sprinkle of the cayenne, unless you like things really hot!)
Salt & pepper
Fabulous Fixins:
Roasted red bell pepper strips
feta cheese
chopped kalamata olives
Cilantro olive oil
Heat olive oil in a pan and sauté onion and garlic and spices until onions are soft and starting to color. Place beans and chicken stock in a food processor or blender. Add onion and garlic and process until smooth. Add as much chicken stock as needed to get to your desired consistency. Return soup to pan. Whisk in lemon juice, tahini, salt and pepper. Taste and adjust any seasonings.
To make toppings:
Slice flesh of bell pepper off the stem. Place skin side up on a baking sheet and broil until blackened. Place pepper pieces in a small ziplock bag and let steam 5-10 minutes. Peel blackened skin off and cut pepper pieces into strips.
Place 1/4 cup olive oil in a blender and a few cilantro leaves. Process until smooth and a pretty green shade. I strained mine through a fine mesh strainer but you really don’t have to do that as, you know, it really didn’t catch any larger chunks of cilantro.
To serve soup:
Ladle into bowls. Drizzle with the cilantro oil and arrange pepper strips, kalamata olives and feta pieces on top. Serve with warm pita bread.
Next week: I just got a new Martha Stewart Baking book and I have a hankerin’ to do some baking. I think I’m going to try something over the weekend. You know what that means — either something really good or a total catastrophe! Could go either way! Yay! I also want to try and make a pork loin roast Saturday. Oh and there’s talk of another big Donor dinner event for work in either January or February…but this time, we’re talking lasagne party. So, it should be a bit less stressful… she said, naively…