I’m a firm believer of the goodness of soups and hence after the trip I felt that it was important that we should get a dose of nourishing soup! Working with nothing much in the fridge, I decided to make a hearty soup with the black beans that fascinate Alicia so much during the Montessori activities (see Fun with Beans and Sorting Beans). I call this the classic black bean soup because you can actually add some chinese herbs to make it a herbal black bean soup. I’ve got a du zhong black bean soup recipe on my blog for treating backaches – it’s a common soup drunk during confinement month as well.

Black beans contain:

“vitamin K, vitamin C, manganese, vitamin A, dietary fiber, potassium, folate, iron, magnesium, thiamin, riboflavin, copper, calcium, phosphorus, protein, omega-3 fatty acids and niacin. Black beans are also a very rich source of fiber, these nutrients play important role to prevent cholesterol from becoming oxidized and heart disease. When people talk about black bean, it is a unique type of bean because of the color coat on the black bean and it make them different from other beans, the color coat of black bean contain at least 8 different flavonoids that have enormous antioxidant potential that can be used to prevent degenerative diseases. Black bean like other types of beans contain a lot of protein contents and fiber, each cup has about 15 grams of both protein and fiber.” (Source: Article Doctor)

For more info about black beans, click here.