February 5

Grilled Cheese and Black Bean Soup

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• Grilled Cheese [View Recipe]

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  Ingredients

  • 4 slices rye bread
  • 5 slices cheese
  • 1/2 tablespoon butter

  Instructions

  Before putting together the sandwich, we heat a frying pan over medium heat. This should <b>not</b> be a non-stick pan, which should never be heated without oil or butter (the surface may emit some unwanted fumes).

  The most important thing to remember when cooking grilled cheese is to keep the cheese off the frying pan. We place two and a half slices of cheese on a slice of bread. We break off any cheese that extends over the edges of the bread and place them in the center of the sandwich, distributing the cheese as evenly as possible.

  We place the other slice of bread on top of the cheese. On top of the bread, we place two pats of butter. We make the butter thin slivers for lighter fare, a little thicker for a superb sandwich. We cook for about a minute per side, a little longer if not golden brown.

  After removing from the frying pan, we let it sit for a half a minute prior to eating (it's hot!).

• Black Bean Soup [View Recipe]

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  Ingredients

  • 1 tablespoon oil
  • 1 1/2 cups onions (chopped)
  • 1/2 large bell pepper
  • 3 cloves garlic
  • salt
  • 1 chipotle pepper (minced)
  • 2 teaspoons cumin
  • 1 cup water
  • 28 ounces tomatoes
  • 2 teaspoons oregano
  • 30 ounces black beans
  • chopped cilantro, limes and low-fat sour cream

  Instructions

  In a large pot, we heat the oil over medium heat. We add the onions, lower the heat to medium-low, and sweat the onions for about 8 minutes.

  Meanwhile, we chop the red pepper, yielding about 3/4 cup. We also mince the garlic with some salt to make a paste. Finally, for our prep, we open the cans of tomatoes and black beans. When the onions are softened and translucent, we add the red bell pepper and continue cooking for about 5 minutes. Then we add our garlic and stir for about a minute. Next we stir in the chipotle and the cumin. After a minute, we add the water and the juice from the can of tomatoes. With our kitchen scissors, we chop up the tomatoes in the can as best we can, and then add them to the pot. We add the dried oregano, and raise the heat to medium. We bring the soup to a boil, and then simmer it gently, partially covered, for about 5 minutes.

  Meanwhile, we drain and rinse the black beans in a colander. When the tomatoes are beginning to break down, we add these to the pot, and continue to simmer for about 15 minutes or so. We then remove about 2 cups of the soup and puree it in our blender. We add this to the remaining soup and it makes the soup wonderfully creamy. We taste for salt and keep the soup on low heat until ready to serve.

  When we serve our soup, we add a squeeze of lime, chopped cilantro, and a dollop of sour cream.