BEAN SOUP (soup maker recipe)

This was a very tasty soup.

At this time of year I have a clear out of our food cupboards.  At the back of a cupboard I found this bag of dried white haricot beans.  They were just past their sell by so it was time to use them up!  The next day I looked in my recipe books for things to do with beans and came up with bean soup, perfect for the freezing cold weather we were having last week.

What I hadn't bargained for was that the dried beans had to be soaked overnight before they could be cooked.  I should have realised this as it's exactly what we now do with our mushy peas so I wrote it on the pack of beans to remind me!  (I have never seen mushy peas for sale in France and instead of bringing tins of them from the UK I bring packs of dried marrowfat peas which I then cook and freeze in portions.)

A rummage at the back of the pantry shelves turned up a couple of tins of pre cooked beans so we could still have the soup. 

Another thing I found in the cupboard was a pack of half baked demi baguettes that were just at their sell by date.  These are very handy to have in stock for when you want nice crusty bread and the boulangerie is shut or the baguette machine in the village has sold out.  I always make sure we have some in stock.  They’re not quite as delicious as a fresh baguette but better than none at all!

The soup was cooked in the soup maker on the "chunky" function which means it's all boiled up but not blended.  Consequently I chopped the veg smaller than usual as that's the size the chunks were going to be in the finished soup.  As the blender function is not used you could simply cook the soup in a saucepan!

It was delicious, definitely a keeper and Nick declared it one of the best soups I had ever made.  It was just the job for a chilly day when we didn’t want to head to the shops on slippery roads.

Ingredients

1 400g tin chopped tomatoes

1 400g tin haricots blancs or cannellini beans, drained and well rinsed

1 large onion, peeled and finely chopped

2 medium carrots, peeled and chopped into small dice

2 sticks celery, washed and thinly sliced

2 cloves garlic, peeled and finely chopped

1 vegetable stock pot

1 tsp mixed herbs

Method 

Put all the ingredients into the soup maker with enough water to fill to the top line.  Give it all a good stir.  (Or put it all into a large saucepan with a litre of water and bring to the boil gently, cover and cook for 15-20 minutes, stirring occasionally, or until the carrots are tender.)

Cook on the chunky setting.

If the carrots are still slightly firm, stir the soup and give it another few minutes on "chunky".

Serve with warm, crusty baguette.

Makes 4 generous servings.