Tag Archives: beans

Black Bean Soup with Caramelized Onions

24 Jan

I love black bean soup.  It’s pretty easy to prepare, it’s great as leftovers, it’s a blank slate for toppings and, as a bonus, it’s  quite healthy.  Black beans are a good source of fiber and protein (like most beans), but they are also the antioxidant superstar in the bean family.  What’s not to love?

I like to cook a big batch of black beans every couple of weeks.  I soak overnight, rinse and drain and then put in the crockpot with filtered water and kombu to cook.  The kombu does wonders for making the beans, well, less musical?  Who am I kidding?  I have a three year old little boy who loves to giggle about toots and f*rts.  Thankfully when cooking beans with kombu, there is much less to giggle about.

After the beans are cooked, I usually freeze half in mason jars.  The texture of the thawed beans is a little off for dishes that feature beans eaten straight out of the can, but is perfectly fine in soups and casseroles where the beans will be cooked again.  Like this one.

Black Bean Soup with Caramelized Onions

Ingredients:

  • 1 carrot, diced
  • 1 large onion, sliced
  • 2 cloves garlic, sliced
  • 1 red pepper, sliced
  • 2 Tbsp grapeseed oil
  • 1 can black beans, rinsed and drained
  • 1 cup plain tomato sauce or puree
  • 2 cups vegetable broth (or water)
  • 2 tsp cumin
  • 1 tsp chili powder
  • 1/2 tsp dried chipotle chili powder

Directions:
  1. Heat grapeseed oil in a pan over medium heat. Reduce heat to medium low. Add onions and cook slowly until browned, stirring occasionally.  This should take about 20 minutes.  (My pan is really small)
  2. Remove onions from pan and increase heat to medium-high. Add peppers and garlic and saute for 4-5 minutes, or until soft.
  3. Add onions, peppers, garlic and all remaining ingredients to a large pot and bring to a boil.  Reduce heat and simmer for 20 minutes.  At this point you can serve as is or puree.  I like using my hand-held immersion blender and blending the majority of the soup.
  4. Remove from heat and serve.  Great topped with chopped cilantro and avocado.

WIAW- New Years Eats

4 Jan

Hello Wednesday!  With the no school on Monday, I’m a little out of whack with my days this week.  What can I say?  I get confused easily.

Time for the weekly What I Ate Wednesday post for the weekly blog series at Jenn’s Peas and Crayon’s blog.  Today is the 50th WIAW blog party.  I’ve participated in most of them and enjoy both sharing a day in the life of my eats and peeking into other’s day-o-food.  You can click on the image below to see all the bloggers that link up each week.

Today I’m showing our eats on New Years Eve and New Years Day.  You’ll see what a crazy party girl I am….For New Years Eve our little family rang in the new year with a Vegetable Plate night dinnerBread, Roasted Green Beans, Balsamic Browned Butter Asparagus, Roasted Potatoes with Garlic and Rosemary and Fruitand we rang in the new year at 8:00 pm with some sparkling apple-grape juice and Mama Pea’s Ranch Oyster Crackers.Why, yes, we did drink out of little dessert dishes.  I didn’t have any plastic champagne flutes and I wasn’t about to give the kids thin, fragile glasses to clank with, so sturdy little glass dishes it was.  We took a self-portrait in our party clothes:After the kids went to bed, the husband and I partied it up with Matt Damon.  As in we watched Bourne Supremely and were in bed by 11:30.  My kind of night with my kind of man.  Both Matt and my husband.  :)We started 2012 with some oatmeal with apple butter and walnutsand the husband took the kids to Starbucks for a bit so I could work on my big year-in-review post.  I know it turned out to be pretty long (or a lot long), but I loved writing it.  We all went to the gym, you know, to work off all that sparkling apple juice.  I had a packet of Vega Sport mixed with my water.  You know, because I’m a hard core athlete and all.

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When we got home the kids and husbands made bean burritos (no picture) and I made a socca breakfast pizza of sorts with the leftover roasted vegetables from the night before.  It was really filling and I ate half on New Years Day and the second half the next day.

Fired up by my lunch and workout (and by having the husband at home), I started operation De-Christmas.  We got everything put away in record time and the house suddenly felt much bigger.  As much as I love having the house decorated, I also love packing it all away.

For dinner I made a new recipe that I had cut out from a magazine many moons ago, a Black Eyed Pea and Mushroom Ragout over Parmesan Polenta.  I liked it, but it was a bit too earthy/mushroomy for the husband and kids.  Next year I’ll stick to our traditional New Year’s Day meal of Black Eyed Peas and Rice with cornbread.

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The kids had grilled cheese with the bread leftover from the previous night’s dinner and a spoonful of plain black eyed peas, as they need good luck too.  Especially with me for a mom.

Thanks for reading about our day of food.

Do you eat Black Eyed Peas on New Years Day?

WIAW – Brown Brown Brown

6 Dec

I present this week’s not so colorful What I Ate Wednesday, hosted by Jenn at her Peas and Crayons Blog.

I call it What I Ate That Was Brown Wednesday….

I started the day with a cup of tea.

Chai Tea + Coconut Milk = Brown.

I got to packing a lunch for my kindergartener.  Brown bread (with brown peanut butter), brown pita chips.

Brown bear, brown bear what do you see?

I dropped off my girl at school, glanced at my little guy in the backseat, grinned and took a picture (not brown and if this picture doesn’t make you at least think about smiling, then your heart is two sizes too small.  And brown):

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and came home to eat my breakfast.

Brown oatmeal + brown walnuts + brown apple pear butter.

A bit later my little guy and I headed to the gym.  I did some Power Yoga.  He did some Power Playing.  After leaving the gym, I had some water (from a brown bottle) and a Luna Bar (two shades of brown with the grains and chocolate coating).

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After some errands, I came home for lunch and ate a bowl of quinoa with roasted butternut squash and onions.

Brown quinoa, brown almonds, browned squash and onions.

When it was time to pick up the kindergartener, I grabbed a ginger kombucha for the road.  Yep, brown again.

Snapped the picture in front of the Little People Nativity Scene.  Not only does it teach the story of Christmas in a really accessible way for little hands and minds, it also lets for some highly entertaining dialogue.  Like “Stop throwing Baby Jesus and put him back in the barn.”  Or “Mom, Brother is making Spiderman hit the Wise Man.”   My personal favorite is a tie between “Mom, why does Joseph wear a dress?”  and “Can I take Baby Jesus with me to the bathroom?”

For dinner we had beans and rice.

Brown pinto beans +Brown rice.

The meal actually had a bit of color,

lest you fear I had a horribly drab day.

After dinner I had an unpictured piece of dark chocolate.  Brown, of course.

In the Brown spirit, here are some quotes by famous Browns:

“Google’ is not a synonym for ‘research’.”   ― Dan Brown, The Lost Symbol

“The reward for conformity was that everyone liked you except yourself.” – Rita Mae Brown, Venus Envy

“In the book of life, the answers aren’t in the back.” – Charlie Brown

WIAW – Pretend This Is A Witty Title

8 Nov

I’ve been hoping that inspiration would hit and I could come up with some theme to my weekly What I Ate Wednesday post (for the WIAW blog party hosted by Jenn at Peas and Crayons), but, as I sit here on Tuesday night, I’ve got no clever theme, no cute title.  With that rousing preface, I give you: What I Ate on a Totally Normal Day…..

Breakfast:

Green Smoothie with Spinach, Kale, Cultured Coconut Milk, Banana, Blueberries and Water

Snack:

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Pumpkin Chocolate Chip Energy Bar (straight from the freezer)

Lunch:

20111108-210458.jpgMet up with a friend for lunch (Hi Jean!) and had a big salad with greens, almonds, feta, dried fruit and a pear vinaigrette.  Tasty.

Snack:

Kombucha + Almonds (pretend, along with the witty title, that there is a picture of almonds here)

Dinner:

Black Bean Soup topped with avocados, cilantro and tortilla chips for the husband and me.  The kids had cheese quesadillas, fruit and avocados.

Dessert:

Protein Soft Serve: frozen banana, scoop of rice protein powder, coconut milk. Topped with chocolate chips.

I’ll leave you with a recent note from my 6 year old daughter, in the spirit of What I WANT Wednesday:

(M….. is her brother)

(we are trying to convince her that Santa doesn’t bring dogs, as he can’t make a dog in a toy workshop)

(which isn’t working so well since Santa brought her best friend a puppy last year)

(we are also browsing animal shelter and rescue group web pages which is very dangerous)

(case in point- look at the picture my husband sent yesterday…..)

Anyone want to place a bet as to how soon we add a dog to our family?

Southwest Eggrolls

28 Jun

I saw this recipe over on Sarah’s blog (Sarah Learns) and immediately bookmarked it.  I am always on the lookout for new ways to serve black beans.  You remember that shrimp farmer from Forest Gump?

Bubba: Anyway, like I was sayin’, shrimp is the fruit of the sea. You can barbecue it, boil it, broil it, bake it, saute it. Dey’s uh, shrimp-kabobs, shrimp creole, shrimp gumbo. Pan fried, deep fried, stir-fried. There’s pineapple shrimp, lemon shrimp, coconut shrimp, pepper shrimp, shrimp soup, shrimp stew, shrimp salad, shrimp and potatoes, shrimp burger, shrimp sandwich. That- that’s about it. 

That’s me with black beans.  Black bean tacos, black bean burritos, sweet potato-black bean empanadas, black bean dip, black bean tostados, black bean quesadillas, and now, black bean egg rolls!

Southwest Egg Rolls

  • 1 (15 oz) can black bean (rinsed and drained) or 2 cup cooked black beans
  • 1/2 c cilantro, diced
  • 1/2 cup shredded mexican cheese blend (can omit to make vegan)
  • 1 (4 oz) can diced green chilies
  • 1/2 cup green onions, chopped
  • 1/2 c frozen corn, thawed
  • 1/2 c diced red peppers
  • 1 tsp each chili powder, cumin, garlic powder
  • salt to taste
  • 1 package (20-count) egg roll wrappers *(I accidentally bought won-ton wrappers, so mine were ‘bite-sized’)
  • cooking spray
*won-ton and egg roll wrappers can be found in the produce section, usually by the tofu and sprouts.
1. Preheat oven to 425 and spray a cooking sheet with cooking spray.
2. Mix all ingredients.
3. Place about 2 Tbsp filling onto wrappers (more if using bigger wrappers).  See Sarah’s blog for step by step photo instructions as to how to fill and wrap.
4.  Place filled rolls onto the cooking sheet and spray again with cooking spray.
5. Bake for about 10 minutes, flipping the rolls about halfway through.  Will need to bake longer if you use egg roll sized wrappers.
6. Serve with guacamole and salsa.

Creamy White Bean Tortilla Bake with Green Salsa

5 Apr

I am a native Texan.  That does not mean that I am automatically Republican, rode my horse to school or carry a firearm.  It does mean that I grew up surrounded by Tex-Mex food and have eaten more than my fair share.  When we moved to Minnesota, good Tex-Mex was one of the things I missed the most.  (Mom, I missed you too.  Almost as much as enchiladas and salsa.) I was a meat eater during my MN days and made a Chicken Chilaquiles recipe from Cooking Light during those times I was craving Tex-Mex flavors.  It wasn’t quite the same, but it could tide me over until our next trip to Texas.

We’ve since moved to San Antonio, Texas which isn’t exactly lacking in Tex-Mex.  As in, it’s on every corner. Still, last week as I shopped I passed some green salsa and picked it up, remembering the chilaquiles dish.  I came home and vegetarian-ized it to tasty results.

Ingredients:

  • 2 c cooked white beans (rinsed and drained if using canned)
  • 3/4 c chopped onion
  • 2 cloves garlic, chopped
  • 1 tbsp oil (grapeseed or olive)
  • 3/4 c chopped green onion
  • 1/2 c sour cream (dairy or vegan)
  • 1.5 c green salsa
  • 1/2 c shredded cheese (dairy or vegan)
  • 10-12 6in corn tortillas, cut into eights

Instructions:

  1. Heat oven to 375.
  2. Bake tortilla wedges for about 10 minutes, or until crisp. Turn oven down to 350.
  3. In a medium sauce pan over medium high heat, saute onion and garlic in oil until tender, about 5 minutes. Stir in white beans and remove from heat.
  4. In another bowl, mix sour cream, green salsa and  green onions.
  5. In a greased 11×7, 8×8 or 1.5 qt baking dish, place half of tortilla wedges.  Top with 1 cup bean mixture, 1 cup salsa mixture and 1/4 c cheese.  Repeat layers with remaining tortillas, beans and salsa.  Top with 1/4 c cheese.
  6. Bake at 350 for 25-30 minutes, or until bubbly and cheese begins to brown.
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