Armenian Garbanzo Bean, Leek & Potato Soup (Vegan)

This is a hearty protein-rich, vegan recipe that's wonderful with a salad and some fresh bread. I like to cook a large batch and freeze what we don't use for a quick and easy meal. The tomato-based soup has the wonderful flavors of dried mint, lemon and cumin all blended together.

Ingredients:

I lb. dried garbanzo beans - You can used canned garbanzos as well - 1 pound dried beans - 6 cups cooked beans

12 cups water

2 - 14.5 oz cans diced tomatoes (use tomatoes and liquid from can)

1 lb. washed and sliced leeks (I like to use pre-cut frozen from Trader Joe's)

1 lb. white, red and purple fingerling potatoes, sliced

6 cloves garlic, minced

1 TBSP dried powdered mint leaves

1/2 cup fresh lemon juice

1 TBSP cumin

1 - 2 TBSP olive oil (depending on how non-stick your pan is)

Salt to taste

The How-To.....

The night before: Sort through dried garbanzo beans and pick out any discolored, damaged beans (and anything that's not a bean). Rinse and put in a large pot with water and bring to a boil. Boil for 5 minutes. Cover the pot and let stand overnight.

The day of the soup: Drain the water and rinse the beans. Add twice as much volume of water as the garbanzo's and cook at a simmer for another 1.5 hours. The beans should now be tender. At this point I drain the water so that I can measure the amount of water that I'm going to use for the recipe. If you're good at estimating, you can use the water used to cook the beans in and add to it.

One pound of the dried beans will yeild 6 cups of cooked garbanzo beans. Add drained beans into your soup pot with 12 cups of water and 2 cans of diced tomatoes with their liquid. Cook on a medium flame.

Using a non-stick pan, add 2 TBSP olive oil and heat. Add the chopped leeks and garlic to the pan and cook, stirring to soften the leaks. To this I add a couple teaspoons of coarse salt. Keep stirring on medium flame until the leeks have softened, the garlic has mellowed and it starts to smell great.

Wash and chop your fingerling potatoes and add to the leek and garlic mixture, stirring every 5 minutes or so to cook and coat. The leeks should start to brown and the potatoes soften.

Once the vegetables are nicely softened, carefully add them into the soup pot. You'll want to simmer this all together for about an hour for the flavors to come together. After about an hour, add in the cumin, dried mint leaves (crush between your hands if you have fresh dried whole leaves from your garden), salt to taste, and simmer for another 15-20 minutes. Turn off the flame and add fresh lemon juice.

Serve with a side salad and fresh bread. Freeze the leftovers for another meal! Enjoy!