Sunday Soup #2: Black Bean Soup with a Hint of Orange

It only took one week for our Sunday Soup schedule to fall apart. Of course. So, this week's edition of Sunday Soup comes to you on Monday--we were just too hungry to wait out the 2.5 hour commitment by the time we were headed home last night! (So we opted for Smokin Okie's in Pleasant Hill, instead. If you're in the Bay, check it out sometime. It's a hole in the wall that Gina introduced me to last Thursday...and by Sunday I was ready again! So far, I can highly recommend the Chicken Pot Pie--I loved it so much, I looked up a recipe that night!)

This week's soup was Black Bean Soup with a Hint of Orange (Sunday Soup, pg. 80). SO GOOD! I love a flavorful bean soup, and it's definitely the orange and the dollop of sour cream that made this amazing. Yes, it was a time commitment, but oh so worth it! And the good news is that 2 of those hours involved me registering for Facebook (yes, I finally caved), rather than slaving over the stove. Some notes to self:

• 2.5 hours is probably an under-estimate. I let it simmer for a good half hour more to get to a consistency I liked, and ended up pureeing a good portion. (I prefer a thicker soup.)
• Because of the time commitment, this would be a good one to cook on a Sunday afternoon, then reheat for dinner, or for lunches throughout the week.
• Buy a hand juicer tool--Raf squeezing is less than effective.
• Spanish-style chorizo is hard to find. She recommended Whole Foods, but they don't carry it anymore. The selection at Safeway was even more abysmal, but I ended up buying a package of beef (instead of pork) Mexican (instead of Spanish-style) chorizo anyway, then came home and stuck it in a frying pan to heat up (hoping that would get me close enough to the Spanish pre-cooked equivalent). Can I just state a side note here--home cooking is such a reasonable (and obvious) way to become a knowledgeable food advocate. Do you have any idea what is in chorizo??? YUCK! Have you ever watched it cook? Double yuck! But, if I'm going to love it in a restaurant, I better be able to stomach the process myself. Waste not, want not, right? Anyway, good news is, the soup still tasted great, even with no Spanish-style reference point.