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Black Bean Sweet Potato Stew and Rosemary-Thyme Bread

For my inaugural dinner, I chose to do something delicious and hearty. Black bean sweet potato stew it is!

So this stew turned out to be more like a chili. I'm gonna list what I did here, but at the bottom I'm going to list what I'm gonna do differently next time to make it more stewish.

• Soak black beans for a few hours, rinse and drain before using
• Peel and chop sweet potatoes and bake for 30 minutes at 500 degrees til they're cooked, but not quite falling apart
• In a pot (I used my cast iron dutch oven) on the stove top, turn the eye onto medium-high heat with sweet potatoes, beans, and vegetable broth (to cover)
• Chop some cilantro and sautee some onion and throw it in. 
• Drain and add some canned tomatoes (I used tomatoes that that mom had canned. I also put the juice in another pot and reduce it)
• Add some chipotle, cumin, and sea salt #nomnomnom
• Dice some pineapple and add it
• Add a couple cans of tomato sauce 
• Cook it together til delicious ^_^

For the bread, I mixed some warm water and a couple spoonfuls of cane sugar, adding yeast and setting this mixture aside so that the yeast could proof. I then stirred together a teaspoon of salt, three cups bread flour, and some ground rosemary and thyme. I put these mixtures together, adding about 2-4 tablespoons of vegetable oil and about another quarter cup bread flour as I kneaded. Then I put the dough ball into a greased bowl and set aside to rise. After it doubled, I punched it down, formed a loaf, and put it on a greased cookie sheet to rise again. I baked it for 20-30 minutes at 400 degrees. This recipe is *so good.* It's like a cloud in a crust. The original recipe is here.

Reflections:
Next time, I plan to not bake the sweet potatoes in advance. They'll be fine just cooking with the stew.
Also I plan to cook the beans before I add them to the stew.
I definitely want more of a tomatoey taste, so I plan to increase the amount of tomatoes/tomato sauce
Next time I want to reduce the amount of pineapple I use to sweeten it, adding some shredded carrots instead. I meant to add shredded carrots this time, but I forgot. XD


I'm so excited about the different soups I want to make! I'm still playing with the format of the blog, but I hope to make it more fun as it goes along. ^_^

Next up: Laura's Kabetori soup!

Yearning for soup

Hi! I'm Andrew and I'm kind of an odd piece of work. I didn't used to like soups, but in the last few years, I've fallen in love with them. And towards the end of this summer, I've really been wanting soup, but it's been too hot. People have been telling me "Just make soup and eat it even if it's hot." But I've not been able to bring myself to do such a thing. THUS I am very ready for soup now that the weather is cooling down. I plan for this fall and winter to be FILLED with soup (and with delicious homemade bread) and I want to blog this journey. Join me and I'll share recipes, pics, and and stories from my life of soup. :D