Black Bean Soup with Sherry

This was really good soup - and easy to make since I cheated and used canned black beans despite the recipe specifically stating "not canned." lol ;) Well, when you're hungry, you don't want to wait, right?

The soup starts out with what is known as a sofrito - a mixed vegetable soup base. It's time consuming but easy and well worth the effort.

Leave the hot sauce out to make this gluten-free ~ I'm really not sure if hot pepper sauce is GF or not...

Serves 4

Ingredients:
Sofrito
1/2 tbsp. olive oil (superfood!)
1/2 small onion, chopped (superfood!)
1 celery stalk, chopped
5 garlic cloves, chopped (superfood!)
4 green onions, finely chopped (superfood!)

Soup
1 cup reduced-sodium vegetable broth
1 can black beans, drained and rinsed (superfood!)
1/4 tsp. freshly ground black pepper
1/4 tsp. hot sauce
1 tsp. ground cumin
1/2 tsp. dried oregano
1/2 tsp. dried thyme
1/6 cup medium-dry sherry

Method:
1. Heat the olive oil in a large, heavy-bottomed saucepan or Dutch oven over medium heat for 30 seconds. Reduce the heat to low. Add the onion, celery, garlic, and green onions. Saute slowly, stirring occasionally, until the moisture evaporates and the veggies begin to turn golden, about 30 minutes.

2. Add the stock, beans, ground pepper, hot sauce, cumin, oregano, and thyme. Simmer about 30 minutes. Stir occasionally.

3. Puree 1/3 of the soup mixture in a blender or food processor and return the pureed soup to the pot.

4. Add the sherry and cook an additional 5 minutes.

Reference:
From Karen Lee's The Occasional Vegetarian.
My change, other than the canned beans, was to use green onions in place of shallots. Everything else remained the same. Oh, I also omitted water and cut the amount of broth since I wasn't using dry beans.