It's Soup!

Well, I don't know about you, but every time I walk past the bags of dried beans in the veggie aisle, I get all kinds of homesteader fantasies about it.  I love especially the bags that have a huge assortment of beans and then a packet of seasonings for you to make soup out of.

In years past, I have bought these packets of soup mix and then had to throw them out because of how long they sat in the pantry.  Well, I bought a soup mix recently and it was beautiful.  All different colors and sizes of beans and lentils with a tiny packet of spice.  All I had to add was some Italian sausage...  It sounded easy enough.   I was having some friends over for a playdate and lunch - and I thought this hearty soup would be perfect! Working on my inspired momentum I decided to make this for our lunch.
I pictured that the soup would retain this look and have a clear broth  when made - that you could actually see the wholesomeness and my homesteader resourcefulness in the bowl.

Well, this is what it looks like when prepared according to package directions.

Seriously - I cleaned up some vomit in my car in December and it looked just like that.  The same color, the same ratio of liquid to solid.  I could make some and sell it to Hollywood as a vomit prop!
And guess what?  You get to soak those fucking beans overnight for this loveliness.  and rinse them.  and soak them, and rinse and soak and rinse and soak.  Alright, I am exaggerating, but still this was a jobby soup.
So it turned out looking exactly like vomit.  EXACTLY.  And one of those friends who was coming over for lunch - well, her family has had the stomach flu no less than 3 times in the past 3 weeks...  She was really ready to chow down on my bowl of vomit soup.
Ok.  So it looks terrible and is a lot of work - but what about the taste?  It tastes like eating a can of refried beans that have been sitting in the sun all day - and it actually is a lot of work to chew and more work to swallow.

Soooo.  Bean soup.  At least I'm fucking over it.