Now that cold weather has well and truly set in and winter is fast approaching, the work related to preparing the house exterior for weather to come finally completed, and the gardens have been bedded down for the winter, winter comforters put on the beds, and the clothing in our closets changed to reflect the need for warmer cover-ups, all that is left is to wrack my memory for winter-appropriate meals.

It's the time of year when more substantial, nutrition-packed hot meals answer our daily needs. And invariably my thoughts turn to soups, hearty, flavourful and packed with energy. At this time of year I tend to have a tendency toward tomato-lentil, bean-vegetable combinations to augment the usual chicken-rice soup we always have on Friday nights.

Sometimes I peruse the many cookbooks I've acquired over the years and maintain in my kitchen library; admittedly little-used, but there for reference from time to time. Early this week, though, I turned to the Internet as I do more often now, for different meal-preparation ideas. Not that I come away inspired necessarily, but occasionally a recipe does click for me and I give it a try.

As I did a few days ago with a black bean vegetable soup I found there. When I'm cooking soup I prefer, if using beans, to start from scratch; rinse and soak them overnight, then begin the cooking process, a long, time-involved process that strangely enough, pleases me. This recipe called for canned black beans, and I do have them in my pantry, so I prepared the soup.

1 tsp. olive oil
1 chopped onion
1 clove garlic chopped
1 carrot, chopped
3/4 tsp. chili powder
1/4 tsp. ground cumin
2 cups vegetable stock
1 can black beans
2/3 cup frozen corn kernels
1 (small)  can stewed tomatoes
pepper

The oil, onion, garlic and carrot gently stirred and cooked until the onion becomes soft; chili powder and cumin sprinkled over and stirred until savoury, then stock added, and half the beans. The other half reserved to be pureed with the stewed tomatoes before adding to the soup. The corn, pepper added, and the soup simmered for about 40 minutes.

I didn't, as it happened pulse the stewed tomatoes, but left them as is, as my husband prefers them, in chunks. And I used unground cumin seed. And the concoction came out extremely well, beautifully flavoured, thick and mouth-watering.  In fact ....

... Delicious!