Cold Day, Hot Soup

Slow cooker, old style -- cast iron on the woodstove

Black bean soup with what's-in-the-larder

It's snowing -- but it does that in Vermont in January, so all is right with the world. I had leftover sweet potatoes in the fridge from dinner two nights ago, so I set out to make black bean-sweet potato burritos.

Then I'd cooked more black beans than I needed (dry beans, cooked on the woodstove, are way cheaper than canned beans -- and no risk of whatever chemicals the can lining gives off, either, especially since they are local organic beans). So what to do with the rest?

Black bean soup.

Soup is the ultimate flexible dish. The recipe? Stock and whatever is in the larder. Here I even cheated on the stock. I kept the water the beans were cooked in, and added a couple jars of my canned tomato-vegetable juice. Then I grabbed a handful of carrots from the copious bin of them remaining from last summer's garden, a couple heads (yes heads) of garden garlic, and a couple locally grown onions. I was out of peppers and not driving out to the store in this snowstorm (mainly because I'm lazy and the woodstove feels too good) so I also drained and added a small jar of my canned jalepenos. Then the coup-de-grace, three peeled, chopped-up seedless oranges, as we weren't eating through the bag fast enough and they would no doubt have gone bad.

How to spice it? I tasted the onion-tomato-orange combo and decided exotic was the way to go. Some smoked sea salt, black pepper, some cinnamon, some ginger, a little Jamaican allspice, some dried parsley for added iron and vitamins, and just to finish it off, a dash -- more like a splash -- of my homemade hot sauce.

Now back on the woodstove it goes to simmer away and I'll taste-test it later. If it's too hot, I'll add some more tomato-veggie juice or some stock. Not zesty enough, more hot sauce.

Since we have the burritos for tonight, this can simmer along 'till tomorrow, adding some water or stock if it boils off too much. Then I'll make a nice crunchy cornbread to go with it (mine is always crunchy since we grind our own corn) and a green salad, and it will be the perfect hot meal for the predicted single-digit night.

Using up what you've got is the ultimate food security -- AND it can lead to the most creative and fresh dishes. Soup is a good chance to experiment; just chop whatever you have in the larder into roughly equal-sized pieces and throw them into stock or broth. Saute them first if you have a mind to, but it's not strictly necessary. Soup is also so incredibly healthful, usually low cal (unless perhaps it's something like a beer cheddar cream soup), high in fiber and nutrients, and filling.

What are YOUR favorite winter soups?