Throughout the year we've saved the little bits of leftover dried beans & lentils in a jar Matt has marked as "bean soup."
The jar was full so it was time to throw everything in the crock pot & whip up (well, slow cook) a hearty soup that will last us all week.
Other than precooking the vegetables & bacon this soup is pretty much hands off. Since you are slow cooking the beans there is no need to presoak them. Using different beans & lentils gives the soup different textures & flavors. The flavor of the beer really comes through in the broth so make sure to use something good. We used a Belgium blonde ale but I think a dark beer would be great too, maybe something with some smoky undertones. Serve with some crusty bread & you have a warming winter lunch or dinner.
Three B's Soup
3 slices of bacon, chopped
2 med. yellow onions, chopped
2 carrots, peeled & diced
2 celery stalks, chopped
2 cloves garlic, minced
1 lb mixed beans (ours had a some lentils in it too)
12 oz beer (we used a blonde ale)
6 c water
large handful fresh Italian parsley, chopped
salt & pepper
1 T verjus or lemon juice
In a large skillet cook the bacon over medium-high heat until it starts to render its fat. Add the onion, carrots, celery & garlic. Sauté until the onions are translucent & the bacon is crispy. Drain fat if you wish, I didn't bother, & add everything to a large crock pot.
Rinse & pick through your beans then add them to the crock pot. Add the beer, water & parsley. Cover & turn crock pot to high. Let cook until the beans are tender about 4 hours.
Taste & season with salt, pepper & verjus or lemon juice.
Makes 6 - 8 servings
If you are not reading this post in a feed reader or at http://agoodappetite.blogspot.com OR at http://agoodappetite.com then the site you are reading is illegally publishing copyrighted material. Contact me at katbaro AT yahoo DOT COM. All recipes, text and photographs in this post are the original creations & property of the author unless otherwise noted. © 2007-2011 Kathy Lewinski
12 comments:
Mmmm - love a great bean soup and can you believe it? never thought to use beer (hand smacking head now) - am having one of those 'I could have had a V-8 moments! Welcome home!
Bean soup made with beer ... now that's what I call awesome. Looks delicious. And I love the hands-off time on a recipe like this.
I just wanted to let you know that the fig package arrived today. It was so much larger than I expected! There were probably 12 pounds of figs in there. What a treat! Thank you for the giveaway. We will be using these in as many ways as we can think of. Thank you again!
I've never thought to use beer, either! But it makes perfect sense now. Delicious!
What a fab idea! Thanks for sharing!
Great idea - I'll have to try my next bean soup with beer!
I can think of lots of words that start with B, but you just picked my top 3! This soup sounds wonderful!
That looks like one big bowl of flavor. Love the bean jar!
Looks like some seriously beany goodness.
an accumulation of beans--nice! i like your fun name for this soup, and the very idea of it! good winter eatin'. :)
That jar of beans makes you want to make a soup with that combo...pretty and good for you!
Oh man. This looks awesome. Love the 3 Bs, love all the ingredients.
Post a Comment