Spicy Black Bean Soup

Wow.

Ingredients

• .75c dry black beans
• 4 strips of bacon, chopped finely
• 1 smallish onion, diced
• 1/2 red bell pepper, diced
• 1 clove garlic
• 1tsp dried oregano
• 1 bay leaf
• 1/4tsp thyme
• 6c chicken stock
• .25c cilantro, chopped
• 2 boneless skinless chicken thighs
• 1 dried chili pepper, MOST of the seeds removed, ground in a mortar & pestle

Cover the black beans with 3 inches of cold water and let sit for about 8 hours.  Drain the water and rinse the beans.

In a soup pot, place the bacon and cook until crispy.  Then add the onion and pepper and the spices.  Cook until the onion is translucent and add the beans, stock, and the chicken thighs.  Stir well, scraping up the browned bits on the bottom of the pot.  Bring to a boil and reduce to a simmer.  Simmer for like 2 hours.  After one of those hours has elapsed, remove the chicken using tongs or a slotted spoon and shred using two forks, then return them to the soup.  After about 2 hours, the beans should be very tender.  Add the cilantro.  Serve.

Thoughts: Not only was this amazing - one of our best soups yet - it pretty much left the entire floor of our building smelling awesome.  The chicken was a last minute innovation designed to use up leftovers before we left town, and shredding it seemed like a really easy way to deal with the stuff being too frozen to cut.  Claire declared that all the chicken in our soups should be prepared this way in the future.  Anyway, not much can be said about this soup.  It was awesome.  Maybe next time I'll use 2 chilies.

Disaster Index: 1/10