Panera-esque Black Bean Soup & Spiced Pita Crisps

I'm so bad about using up the dried beans that like to hang out in my pantry. I usually go for convenience and use canned beans. But this weekend, I decided to put a bag of black beans to good use by making this soup. I've only been to Panera Bread once and had the black bean soup in a bread bowl. My husband wasn't fond of the food there but I really enjoyed my soup. Since he doesn't ever want to go back, I thought I'd re-create the soup at home. Luckily I found a recipe online to guide me. I did a few things different, one obviously being the use of dried beans instead of canned and adding carrots to the mix instead of the red bell pepper. I also added more cumin, threw in some cayenne, lemon pepper and black pepper. It was beautifully thick and perfect with the spiced pita crisps. The crisps recipe is from Veganomicon in which I used whole wheat pita, chili powder, garlic powder and salt.

Note: I cooked the dried beans the day before in the crockpot. 1 lb. dried beans plus 8 cups of water in the crockpot on low for 8-10 hours.