Roasted Navajo Soup

Here is a new recipe for you to try for the New Year. I'm willing to bet that you haven't had something like this before. I created it totally by accident and Rob immediately fell in love. Though he loves all my soups.

Recently, I made one of our favorite vegetarian dishes here -- Navajo Stew from Moosewood. The next day I threw the leftover stew into the blender, added leftover wild rice pilaf, and some vegetable broth, and a new soup was born.

Yesterday, I recreated the soup from scratch for our New Year's Eve celebration. It contains a lot of my favorite ingredients -- roasted vegetables, cumin, and chipotles. It's a hearty soup with a bit of a kick -- perfect for a cold winter night.

This recipe makes a lot for a large family or a party.

Roasted Navajo Soup

2 medium sweet potatoes
2 red, yellow, or green peppers
1 large onion
4 garlic cloves, minced
2 Tbsp. olive oil
1 Tbsp. cumin
1 tsp. salt
1/4 tsp. black pepper
1 (15 oz.) can of tomatoes
1 Tbsp. canned chipotles in adobo sauce
1/2 c. chopped fresh cilantro (optional)
1 (15 oz.) can black beans, drained
6 cups vegetable broth
1 (4 oz) box of wild rice prepared an hour ahead of time

Preheat oven to 450 degrees F. Spray a large baking sheet with oil.
Peel the sweet potatoes and cut into 1-inch cubes.
Stem and seed the peppers and cut into 1-inch pieces.
Cut the stem and root ends of the onion, peel, and slice into wedges.
In a toss the veggies with the garlic, oil, cumin, salt, and pepper.
Spread on the prepared baking sheet and roast in the oven for about 10 minutes. Stir well and continue to roast another 10 to 15 minutes, until the sweet potatoes are fork tender.
In a blender puree the tomatoes, chipotles, cilantro, roasted vegetables, and black beans. You may have to do this in batches.
In a soup pot, combine the puree with the broth and prepared wild rice. Simmer for 15 minutes until warm throughout.

Optional: serve with sour cream, plain yogurt, and or tortilla chips.

Variations: You could replace the wild rice with a white or brown rice. Or even skip the rice put the beans in whole instead of making them part of the puree.