Home Canned or Stove Top Black Bean Soup

I loved the Black Bean Soup that the restaurant Lone Star use to serve. So I called a local radio station that has a show called 'Listen to the Mrs.' to ask if they had a recipe for it. This is what they gave me, and it was very similar to the restaurant's soup. This stove top version is easily adapted to home canning. Then you will have several quarts in your pantry! The following ingredients are for one stove top recipe. To use for home canning, be sure to add each of the listed ingredients to each jar of soaked black beans.

• Ready In: 9 hrs 30 mins
• Serves: 4

Ingredients

• 2  teaspoons  pickled jalapeno peppers, chopped fine (I remove any seeds and usually would just chop up two or three slices which probably equals 1 teaspo)
• 2 (15 ounce) cans black beans, undrained
• 1  teaspoon sugar
• 2  garlic cloves, minced
• 1⁄4 teaspoon cayenne pepper
• 1⁄4 cup red onion, diced
• 1  teaspoon cider vinegar
• 1⁄4 teaspoon salt (optional)
• 1⁄2 teaspoon chili powder
•  sour cream (to garnish)
•  red onion (to garnish)

Directions

1. For the Stove Top version, Combine all the ingredients and simmer for about 1 hour. Garnish with sour cream and red onions.
2. HOME CANNED DIRECTIONS: Place 1 cup of dried black beans into each clean quart jar and cover with water--either overnight or for at least 8 hours. The jars end up looking like there are about three cups of beans in each.
3. Chop enough of the red onions and jalapeno peppers to accommodate the number of jars you will be canning. I used 'pre-chopped garlic in a jar' for the home canned version.
4. Drained the water from the soaking beans and add to each jar the amounts from the recipe above, assembly line style. Remember that the store bought canned beans are being replaced with the freshly soaked beans. NOTE: Since fresh beans contain no salt, I only added the salt that I would normally add to plain home canned beans (approximately 3/4 to 1 teaspoon per jar).
5. Following general preparations for canning your jars.
6. Pour boiling water into each jar leaving at least 1" (probably a little more) of head space. I released any air bubbles by giving each jar a little stir to incorporate the soup ingredients better.
7. Wipe the rim of each jar and place on the simmer lid. Screw on the ring until resistance is felt.
8. Place in a canner that has simmering water in it and pressure can for 90 minutes at 10lbs pressure.
9. The soup appears to have a little more liquid or is more runny than the stove top version. But I like it this way, I always thought the stove top version with store bought beans ended up too thick and I added more water anyways. The beans end up whole and tender.
10. The resulting soup was a tiny bit more spicy-hot than I would have made on the stove top. This could be because I included the seeds in the home canned version. The sour cream garnish tames any hotness and our wimpy family could handle the increased heat.