Recipe Misjudgment--anyone surprised?

So last night I was planning on having this delicious looking soup from Smitten Kitchen. I had all of these dried black beans that I had been using as pie weights a couple weeks ago when I was making my first quiche (are you even allowed to heat the black beans and pie weights and still use them? I mean, I did, but that thought just occurred to me), and they were taking up valuable tupperware/pantry space.

However, Tuesday afternoon, upon giving the recipe a better look, I realized I had missed a few crucial items in the recipe.

1) It was a slow cooker recipe (not necessarily a big deal, but for some reason, I had missed this)

2) It took at least three hours to cook.

Hmm. I was scheduled to get home last night around seven forty from spin class, and waiting until nearly eleven to eat dinner does not really appeal to me. At that point, I would have probably resorted to American cheese slices and Italian bread (this doesn’t sound too bad, actually).

M had to cancel sushi dinner due to a late night at work, so I resolved to go home, make my soup, throw it in the slow cooker, and then do a little shredding.

So I got home and chopped vegetables for like, eighteen hours. I am a slow chopper. My vegetables were abnormally large. In addition, we received some new knives for Christmas, and I keep nearly taking myself out on them. When this happens, instead of calmly readjusting my knife technique, I just scream “Holy Shit Nikki,” and throw the knife.

It doesn’t make sense to me either, it just keeps happening. Thankfully, when I’m alone.

I threw everything in to saute, grabbed my “pie weights” from the pantry, and threw it all together in a giant crock pot that JW’s mom gave him that rarely sees the light of day (one day I will explain my fear of both slow cookers and casseroles, which basically amounts to a fear of the culinary preferences of the Midwest. It’s a topic for another post).

I looked at the clock, realized my soup would be done at the appropriate hour of nine-fifteen, and proceeded to shred.

I also proceeded to smell like garlic, peppers, cumin, and onion for the next half hour. I’ve probably sweated one of those things at once before, but the combination was brutal.

Next time I shred and then chop. It makes sense now.

Thankfully, JW didn’t get home until after I’d finished.

The rest of the night consisted of ice skating and skiing, until the hour of soup doneness hit.

Except, the soup wasn’t done. The beans were still hard.

Bedtime was approaching.

Unfortunately, the soup actually took closer to five hours (which may or may not have to do with my already hardened, pre-baked beans), and I found myself pureeing 2 cups of soup at eleven.

This is not a time when you feel like pureeing soup. Let me tell you. I squeezed a lime into the soup, covered it up, and went to bed smelling like a margarita.

However, I am happy to report that my labor and time intensive recipe was both delicious, and well-received by JW the next night when we got around to actually eating it.

Also, it was easy to make last night. Throw it in a pot and warm it up. Eat it with some Jiffy corn muffins because your boyfriend’s from Chelsea, MI (and you maybe at least went to high school and spent a little time there), and that’s where they makes ‘em (Also, I’m not gonna lie: Jiffy corn muffins are tasty, if semi-homemade at their best).

JW noted that the soup might be good with some corn in it to break up the black beans, and I agree, so next time I’ll try them with some of that Roasted Corn from TJ’s that I keep meaning to buy.

I didn’t make the crema either, mostly because I had no cumin seeds, just powder. I used sour cream on mine, and JW used cheese, and both were pronounced acceptable substitutes.

Next time I’ll also try making this in the hours of daylight. And I’ll recruit a sous-chef to help with all that GD chopping.

I can’t make any promises about not using dual use dried beans though. I don’t want to break my word, especially in writing, on the Internet.

That wouldn’t be very legit.

Have a good day chicks!