Spicy Turkey and Black Bean Soup

Apparently tight finances are good for my creative cooking habits.  I decided to use up some of that turkey and broth I put up a few months ago.  The result was so tasty that I wish I hadn't already eaten so I could have some more! 

Spicy Turkey and Black Bean Soup

2 pints turkey and broth
1 small chopped white onion
1 large carrot chopped
4 small "lipstick" sweet pepper (about half a cup sweet pepper, finely chopped)
2 cans of black beans, drained
2 T chili powder
1 T cumin
1 T chopped garlic
Pinch of red pepper flakes
1 T canola oil

Sautee onions in oil until translucent, add carrots, onion, pepper and spices and cook until all are tender and fragrant.  Add turkey and broth and heat to boiling.  Add beans and bring back to a boil.  Reduce the heat and simmer until broth is thickened.  You can hasten things along by mashing a few of the beans with a potato masher.

This was so good, and I was excited to find another tasty recipe that I could theoretically grow all of the ingredients (except maybe the cumin?)  I have grown black beans here, so I could do so again....I am not actually sure I can grow canola, but I am interested in trying. 

My students are doing a persuasive/research paper and I notice quite a few of them are looking at food security and sustainability in terms of living on an island.  I see my biases are showing in my students - I do talk, just a little, about what we're trying to do here - and if there is any island in Hawaii that could be more sustainable, it is this one - so it is naturally a topic that comes up often.  It is not just me, in other words!  I have kids who are ranch kids, so food production is part of their family conversation.  

I don't really talk about it that much, unless they ask, or if I am giving them an example of research techniques - I always use my own real research to show them - so it is interesting to me that so many of them are picking it up as a topic.

Part of it because there is a general discussion around school with increasing our mala and garden area.  Two of the seniors are doing their senior project on an odorless piggery they want to construct on campus, others are expanding the current growing space.  All of it makes me excited and happy.