"Black Gold" Black Bean Soup

This was our meatless recipe for the week.  I don't do it faithfully, but do try to have one meatless meal per week (for cheapness and for healthness).  We have a few things that I make often, like Corn & Black Bean Quesadillas.  And lots of times we have breakfast for supper and have scrambled eggs and some kind of muffin or other bread.  And then once last month we had blueberry pie and ice cream.  That was fun.  I have tried a lot of meatless recipes, but so far I only have 6 in my keeper book.  Those are recipes that we really liked and will make again (not counting breads).  So I need to boost my repertoire.  My vegetarian sister in law has been passing me a lot of recipes, which I always give her credit for when I try.  So far her banana bread has been awesome, and it's in the keeper book along with her black bean burgers.  She also gave me a recipe for dairy-free corn chowder, so stay tuned for that when it gets a bit more fallish.  This soup came from Back of the Box Cooking.  I'm not sure why it's called "Black Gold."  Sam and I figured it could be a Texas recipe (since "black gold" was a nickname for oil when they found it in Texas); or that it was such a tasty soup it tasted as good as gold (ummm, how does gold taste?).  The recipe offers no insight into the name, so you can make your own conclusions there.  The featured items in the recipe are Hain (never heard of them) chicken broth and canned corn, and Garden of Eatin' blue tortilla chips.  Which I did not purchase.

"Black Gold" Black Bean Soup
 2 (14.5 oz cans) chicken broth (I used 4 cups of homemade vegetable stock)
5 (15 oz) cans black beans, rinsed and drained
2 tbsp canola oil
1 1/2 cups chopped onion
1/2 cup chopped carrot (I bought matchstick carrots so no prep work)
12 cup chopped red or green pepper (I used red)
2 tsp minced garlic
1/2 tsp ground coriander
1/2 tsp ground cumin
1 (15 oz) can whole kernel corn, drained (I used 1 1/2 cups frozen)
3/4 tsp salt
1/2 tsp pepper
Fresh cilantro for garnish
Tortilla chips for serving

In a blender, puree 1 can (or 2 cups) of chicken broth with 3 cups of beans.  Set aside.  In a large saucepan (I used a dutch oven), heat oil.  Add onions and carrots and saute for 3 minutes.  Add red pepper and garlic and saute additional 1 minute.  Add coriander and cumin and cook another 30 seconds.  Add remaining broth, pureed beans, remaining black beans, corn, salt and pepper.  Bring to a boil.  Reduce heat and simmer 10 minutes.  Garnish with cilantro and serve with tortilla chips.

Sam and Steve decided they wanted to put shredded Mexican cheese on theirs.  The little ones and I did not.  Nathan laboriously picked only the corn and carrots out of this soup, and he wanted his with Ritz crackers instead of tortilla chips.  Emma ate it but didn't really like it.  Steve and Sam both liked it.  I thought it was good, not great.  Not good enough to keep, anyway.  Also, Emma was rating on a 5 star scale, where the soup got 3 stars, and the tortilla chips got 4.5 stars.  Then Nathan wanted to rate his meal too.  He told me that the lower the number of stars, the more he liked it, and "remember, more stars is worse I like it."  So he gave the Ritz crackers 1 star, which means he REALLY liked them.  He gave the soup 50 stars (bad).  And he gave the one tortilla chip he tried 100 stars.  So bad.