On My Eaters / Bean Soup

Oh, a New Year.

My resolution is to embrace all cliches.

;)

But, really, I am on a take-care-of-myself-like-I'd-like-to-make-it-past-50 Diet and, as soon as Moses gets down off the ark, I'm also going to exercise.  And, I've got some swear-word-related resolutions.  And reading ones.  Oh, and writing of letters.  And journaling.  And housecleaning.  Blah Blah Blah.
And so, I embrace the cliches.


But I'm writing this now, not to list my goals, but to record a recipe before I forget it.  Every now and then I receive praise from one particular person in my house.  Paul happily eats anything (save bleu cheese, canned asparagus, summer and winter squash, and fruit in places fruit should not be (on meat, in salads) - and even those things he eats, just with a mild bit of displeasure);  Ada Brooks eats anything.  Collins cannot be relied upon, because one day he'll eat complicated and spicy grown-up food and the next day he'll refuse noodles with parmesan cheese on top.  He's a capricious young thing, and though I force a certain amount of health issues (something green and some protein / before bread or sweet things - a holy terror I am, I know), I'm not fighting with him about each little thing.  Eat or don't eat.  No skin off my nose.

Eason Forster, however, well he's the ultimate critic.  And I don't mean with any kind of sophisticated palette.  There is no adult-ness or pretension or even taste buds? in his being.  He's a mac and cheese, pizza, chicken nugget kind of person.  He's a typical kid.  And you know all those super granola mamas who claim that if you just give your kids avocados, et. al., that's what they'll like?   Well, it's true to a point.  Eason, I'm sure, eats a lot more things than he would if I had not started putting grown up things on his plate before he had six teeth.  He's probably a better salad eater than I am.  However, he's just likes that kid food. 

But, if I make a multiple ingredient, healthy dish and he gobbles it down and even doles out praise, well, take notice!
So, since I'm on this Live Six More Decades Diet, I made a dish last night that is super duper healthy, cheap, and Eason came out with, "Oh, Mama, this is so good. Thank you so much for my supper!"

(and so did the others)

And so, it demands recording, before I forget it.
It's nothing exciting.  And it won't earn any culinary awards, but, with long on Eason praise and short on cost, calories, and time, well....
And it's not fresh or local, but it is real and natural - whatever those mean - I mean by it what Michael Pollan says - It's all food my great grandmother would recognize as food - none of it is a 'food-like substance'. 


1 tsp olive oil
1 onion, diced
3 cloves garlic
2 jalapenos, seeded and diced
1 4 oz can of diced green chiles, undrained
1 28 ounce can of diced tomatoes, undrained
4 cups chicken broth
2 tsps oregano
2 tsps cumin
1/8 ish tsp cayenne
 2 cans black beans, drained and rinsed
2 cans great northern beans, drained and rinsed



Saute the onion, garlic, jalapenos and green chiles in the tintiest bit of olive oil.  Or more, if you're so inclined, but with a brothy soup, you don't need as much as you'd want for like a pot of red beans or black beans or something.

After they're all good and soft, add the tomatoes, broth, oregano, cumin, cayenne.  Simmer for thirty minutes or so.

Add the beans.  Simmer for 15 more minutes. 


Serve alone (what I did for me) or over rice (what I did for my other people).

Feel virtuous.

I estimate about $6.00 for the whole thing, and about 8 medium sized adult helpings.  And likely 200-250 calories each serving, before rice.

Oh, and like 20 minutes of active time - an hour from start to finish.