New Paltz Meeting's Ministry of Soup

This past Sunday I worshiped with Friends at New Paltz Meeting on the other side of the Hudson River in New Paltz NY. New Paltz Meeting, along with Poughkeepsie Meeting, Cornwall Meeting and my meeting Bulls Head, are part of a regional group that we Quakers call the Quarterly Meeting, because we get together once a calendar quarter.

New Paltz Meeting also has a ministry of soup, but their custom is a little different. They have a kitchen right next to their meeting room and as soon as Meeting for Worship is over, they pull a big table into the center of the room and bring out some nice bread and a pot of soup that has been warming. Everyone shares soup and fellowship together as we come back to the temporal plane after the experience of worship.

New Paltz Friends take turns making the soup. This Sunday David Goodwin made a hearty black bean soup that smelled deliciously of cumin. I found David enjoying sunshine and soup on the porch and took his picture and got him to tell me about his soup.

David started, as I often do, by sauteing some onions, garlic and carrots in a bit of oil. Then he added 4 cans of black beans, 2 cans of tomatoes, and a can of corn (whole not creamed!) and 12 cups of vegetable stock. He seasoned the soup with ground cumin, chili powder, salt and pepper. This was a simple but flavorful soup that fed a room full of Friends and everyone seemed happy to go back for seconds.

If you are visiting New Paltz, the Quaker Meeting is right on off the main drag downtown. It's a lovely meeting that is very welcoming to families with small children and they won't send you away hungry.

Black Bean Soup with Hominy

It's a beautiful winter day here in the Hudson Valley. As I cook today, I'm watching live coverage of events as they unfold in Egypt and praying for both peace and justice for the people there. I'm also thinking about David Kato, the gay activist who was murdered in Uganda, and other courageous lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender people who face persecution and violence around the world and here in the US. Keep loving each other, friends.

Today's soup is a spicy vegan black bean soup made extra hearty with the addition of hominy.

I began early this morning by cleaning & rinsing 2 lbs of dried black beans and then soaking them in hot water. I love the color of black beans which in a certain light are actually a very very dark purple. When they are wet they glisten like black jewels.



After a couple of hours, the beans were hydrated. I rinsed them again and covered them with fresh water. Cooking over medium heat, a slow boil, I added several cloves of minced garlic, and two large onions. I let the beans cook gently for a couple of hours and then I added a can of tomato paste, to help thicken the broth, and 2 chopped green peppers.

I seasoned the soup with Goya Adobo, liquid smoke, chili powder, ground cumin, black pepper and oregano. The flavor seemed a bit flat and a little bitter, so I brightened it with some vinegary juice from a jar of picked hot peppers and mellowed it a dash of sugar.

When the beans were nice and tender and the broth was rich and thick, I added 2 drained cans of white hominy.

It was ready to eat. I dished up a bowl for myself for dinner and garnished it with some grated extra sharp cheddar cheese (oops! not vegan anymore), some crispy fried onions, a squirt of sriracha sauce and some tortilla chips. The rest will go to Friends at Bulls Head Meeting tomorrow.