Cuban Black Bean Soup

I love black bean soup, probably as much as any soup I know. This time I thought I’d take it away from the Southwestern palate I usually go for and try something more Cuban or Caribbean. Considering the ham hock I threw in, I’m not sure exactly where it wound up being from.

Word is that it turned out pretty well, though.

click on image for slide show

Images:
  • Today’s soup, Cuban black bean, though I’ve kind of got a yen to add some chipotle chili (didn’t do it though).
  • Oh yeah…and a ham hock.
  • Today weapon of choice…my Presto Multi-Cooker. The world’s fastest slowcooker. Seriously, why use a crock pot when you can saute and simmer in the same pot?
  • Damn sexy onion.
  • Damn sexy pepper. Edward Weston, eat your heart out.
  • Onion, green pepper, garlic, happily sauteing some olive oil.
  • Great little ham hock. Worth puffing and puffing that little house down for.
  • One lb black beans, soaked overnight and drained
  • Put it all together, add six cups water.
  • We get it to a boil. Then back down to a simmer and skim the foam…
  • Salted, simmering for the next three hours. Got to pop out and get cumin…
  • One heaping teaspoon cumin, making a late arrival to the party. Cuban black bean soup recipes often call for oregano, but I’m not feeling the love.
  • Black bean soup isn’t really black. Do you think I could add some octopus ink?
  • A teaspoon of vinegar for brightness.
  • A swoosh of sour cream to finish!

Romancing the Character

Caspar David Friedrich, Wanderer above the Sea of Fog

Sometimes I wish I’d gotten an education, rather than a bunch of degrees.  Maybe I’d understand more about what makes people tick if I had. Take the business of romanticism, which I’m convinced is at the heart of genre fiction, particularly SF and Mystery.

When I was in high school, I had no idea what “Romance” meant, except that was about being in love. Then I read Heinlein’s “Tunnel in the Sky” and got my first clue. Continue reading

November 2010 Bookbrowse

I could easily spend half a day wandering up and down the aisles in Barnes and Noble checking out books and magazines. Once in a great while I actually buy one. Here’s November’s browse, including the three shelves of New Science Fiction. See if you can spot your favorite authors there.

Continue reading

Why Can’t Detroit Build A Corolla? Don’t Be So Sure They Haven’t.

Driving home listening to Marketplace on NPR, which makes me feel smart, even though my real brilliance lies in letting my wife handle our money, a story about GM’s IPO brought me up short when the President asked why we couldn’t build a car as good as a Corolla. Because I’m pretty sure I was driving one. Continue reading

TechnoZeitgeist Made Easy (PopSciNov2010)

Popular Science isn’t Make Magazine, which more than got me over the angst I’d been harboring since Scientific American killed its Amateur Scientist column. Though really, it died when C.L. Strong handed it over the next guy. PS isn’t Wired, either, which is still necessary reading to get the tech-zeitgeist, though it’s either gotten more jaded as time passed or jade no longer looks a cool as it used to. I suspect the former, as a reaction to the realization the cutting edge has moved on somewhere.

Even still, I read PopSci every month (and Popular Mechanics too), and though it gets thinner and thinner, what’s left is still good for skimming through to see what they’re deeming…well…pop. Continue reading