Sweet potato, silverbeet and black bean soup

Last week I made pumpkin scrolls (more about them later).  With a filling dessert, I decided a simple stew was all I needed for dinner.  I had sweet potato roasting in the oven, a tin of black beans in the pantry and silverbeet in the garden.

Our spring weather has been rather fickle lately.  When it started to rain, I rushed out to photograph and harvest the silverbeet.  I needn't have bothered.  No longer had I rushed in the door, then the rain stopped.

You can't blame me for not trusting my luck.  That afternoon, I had been trying to listen to a Boy George interview on the radio when Sylvia poured herself a large glass of milk, spilled it over the floor and while I rushed to get the mop, she tried to sweep it up with the broom!  Argh!

I've had a series of these sort of small misadventures lately.  Not that I have much to complain about:

• Bad news - I knocked over a plastic container of flour.  The plastic was so old and brittle that a piece broke and flour went everywhere.
• Good news - When I made bread with the remaining flour, I found the lump of plastic before the bread went into the oven.  (Honestly I thought I had taken out the broken plastic before tipping the flour into another jar!)

• Bad news - Sylvia tipped heaps of sand out of the sandpit all over the backyard.
• Good news - She was having such a lovely time playing on a warm and sunny day that I couldn't be too cross!

• Bad news - I arrived at work today to find my 'Rennie Mackintosh' necklace that I wear most of the time had disappeared.
• Good news - I found it when I got home.  Hurrah!

With the soup, the bad news was that there was too much silverbeet for E.  The good news was that he only had it one night.  I had it two nights in a row and really enjoyed it.  It came together quickly and meant I could eat more pumpkin scrolls!

I am sending this borscht to Deb of Kahaki Kitchen for her Souper Sundays event.

Previously on Green Gourmet Giraffe:
One year ago: CC Tamarind Tempeh with Noodles
Two years ago: Pate, Goslings and Bubbies
Three years ago: HoTM: Chocolate Sesame Cookies
Four years ago: Biscuits like birdseed

Sweet potato, silverbeet and black bean soup
served 3
an original recipe

1 tsp olive oil
1 onion
4 pattypan squash, diced
3 garlic, finely chopped
1 tsp ground cumin
1 tsp smoked paprika
1 tsp salt or to taste (depending on your stock)
2 cups vegetable stock
1 large sweet potato, diced and roasted
large handful of silverbeet (chard), chopped
400g tin of black beans, rinsed and drained
1 small avocado, diced

Fry onion in olive oil for a few minutes and add squash and garlic for a few more minutes.  Stir in cumin and smoked paprika.  Add stock, roasted sweet potato, silverbeet, black beans.  Simmer for about 10 minutes.  Serve scattered with avocado chunks.

On the Stereo:
Fold your hands child, you walk like a peasant: Belle and Sebastian

This post is part of Vegan Month of Food October 2012.  Go to my Vegan MoFo list for more of my Vegan MoFo posts.