This recipe is great if you don’t need a lot of soup or if you are serving it as a side dish.  It’s proportioned out for a 2.5 quart crock pot.  If you have a larger crock pot and would like to make more, simply double the recipe.

Ingredients:

• 1/2 lb dried tepary beans (soaked over-night)
• 1 small potato (small-diced)
• 1 carrot (diced)
• 1 onion (diced)
• 1 stalk celery (diced)
• 1 (14 ounce) can tomato sauce (use a small can)
• 2 tablespoons vegan margarine
• 3 slices turkey bacon (cubed)
• 1 small dried chili (optional)
• 1 bay leaf
• salt and pepper (to taste)

Directions:

Saute the turkey bacon until it’s soft but not crisp. Remove from pan and set aside. You will have very little grease from the bacon so add the vegan margarine to the fry pan and saute the carrot, onion and celery until tender crisp. Drain the Tepary Beans and rinse them well. Put the sauted turkey bacon, vegetables, beans, pepper and bay leaf into your crock pot. Fill to within 2 inches of the top with water. I considered using soup broth but remembered that tomato will inhibit the beans cooking, so water is a better choice here. Remembering this will bubble up so you don’t want to over fill the crock. It should take about 6-8 hours to cook the beans to the soft stage. If think you will need to cook the beans longer add your water at the beginning of the cooking cycle. After 6 or 7 hours check the beans for softness. If you are happy with them then add the tomato sauce and cook for 30 minutes more. Don’t add the tomato sauce before hand as it will stop the beans from getting soft.

Recipe from: http://www.recipezaar.com

photo credit: scottfeldstein

Papago Tepary Bean Soup is a nice, healthy soup for a cold winter day.  Like all soups, you can modify this recipe on the fly, which means this is really lot’s of recipes in one!

Ingredients:

• 2 c  Tepary beans, soaked
• 1 ts Mixed oregano and cumin
• 1 Clove garlic, diced
• 1 md Onion, chopped
• 6 c  Water
• 1 c  Diced celery
• 3 c  Tomatoes w/juice
• 2 Carrots, sliced
• 4 Slices bacon, diced*

Directions:

Drain soaked beans and bring to boil in big pot.  When tender, fry bacon until limp.  Remove bacon; add onion, carrots, celery and garlic and saute. Add bacon, tomatoes and juice and the remaining spices.  Cook 10 minutes and  add beans.  Cook another hour until beans are mealy-tender. Optional: Dried red chile pepper may be stirred into pot during the last 10 minutes. Serve with flour tortillas or fresh frybread.

Serves 6.

*Vegetarians - can leave bacon out

Recipe from: Papa
photo credit: Simon Aughton