Salsa Chicken and Black Bean Soup

I am posting this on my blog because several people have asked about it and this is a nice central location that I can point everyone to.

I'm trying to broaden my horizons when it comes to healthy cooking.  I love healthy food and find that my two biggest obstacles to healthy cooking are 1)  I have very little time to cook in my day  2)  I get tired of the same old thing over and over again.  So I posted a recipe request on Facebook and I'm on a mission to try some new things.  I may have many more posts like this one in the near future.  We'll just see how ambitious I am!  : )

So anyways . . . I got this one from "A Year of Slow Cooking"  You can click here to see the full recipe.

What I changed:

I used pinto beans instead of black beans (they were what I had on hand - black beans would probably be better, but pinto beans definitely worked well.)

I pressure cooked my beans.  She recommends 2 solutions for dealing with dry beans.  1)  Soak them overnight the night before - nice idea, but I wasn't that prepared.  2)  Do a 2 hour "quick soak" and then cook the soup on high for 9 hours - yes 9 HOURS!  That would have left us eating dinner at 7:00pm, so I researched a 3rd option.  I pressure cooked them for 15 minutes!  (Put the beans in the pressure cooker and filled it half way with hot water)  That sure beats that stupid soaking.  Then I cooked the soup on high for about 7 hours.

I left off the garnishes.  I had sour cream on the table, planning to use it, but I completely forgot about it.  It really didn't need it.

All in all it was a really fabulous recipe!  It was very filling . . . one bowl of soup was plenty for each of us.  I served it with corn tortillas because I had them on hand - not a great addition, but it was something.  I also doubled the recipe.  We'll probably eat of of this for 3 more meals.  Now THAT is what I call smart cooking!  : )