Black Bean Salsa Dip

I was trying to make a sort of black bean hummus with this recipe, but failed to realize that the liquid-to-bean ratio would make it distinctly wetter than hummus. No worries! It tastes great, is essentially fat-free, and is easily scoop-able on a chip.

Black Bean Salsa Dip (makes…3 cups? I forgot to measure and I ate a ton of it):

• 1 15-oz. can of black beans (or two cups of cooked beans)
• 2 T onion, roughly chopped
• 2 cloves garlic
• 1 medium-sized tomato, roughly chopped
• 1 T cilantro
• 1  jalapeño
• juice of one lime
• 1 tsp red wine vinegar

Add all ingredients to your food processor or blender and pulse until smooth. Enjoy!

 

Impossible Dinner

I call this dinner Impossible because it does not seem like any of it could possibly go together. Or have a theme. Or some sort of ethnic origin. The flavors here are so strange to me, yet, yet…it works. How could mushrooms and jalapeños go together? Am I just short-sighted on this one? And cherry tomatoes? And you serve it with beans? Um, okay.

I guess it’s the coriander seed that links it all together. There’s coriander in the Unrefried Beans, and in the tomatoes and mushrooms. And I deviated from the original recipe in Appetite for Reduction (which is what the earlier link sorta leads you to) by tossing in corn. I did that for two reasons: 1. Half of my mushrooms had gone bad, 2. I needed a little more protein in this dish. It works, so you can try it, too, if you like. Also, I think the recipe might be a little off, since it doesn’t actually tell you what stage to put the lime juice in. So, I just left it out. I didn’t want to chop and juice a lime tonight anyway. I think if I put a little green chili hot sauce on it, I wouldn’t even miss the lime at all.

I do loooooove this bean recipe, though. I don’t even like to mash them up very much, it gives you more of that texas beans n’ sauce dealy that I love so much. I don’t know that this combo will become a staple in our household, but it’s always nice to eat outside the box.

 

Anasazi Bowl!

I love Anasazi beans. I know I’ve mentioned that before, but it needs to be said again. GREATEST BEAN EVER. I also didn’t realize that you don’t need to soak them–which makes sense, because I do soak them, and they cook in half the time of normal beans. They are like pinto beans, but better, with a stronger flavor and a very tender texture. I can’t get enough of these beans! And luckily they are sold in stores where I live, but they are completely worth ordering online, just to try them. I sort of want to do a road trip out to Dove Creek, Colorado, for some bean tourism.

So this bowl features the best beans in the world, but it also has brown rice, crispy summer squash (slice thin, spray with oil, bake at 425 for 30 mins), and homemade salsa.

Do you love homemade salsa? Me, too. Here’s how I make mine:

Homemade Salsa (makes about 2 cups):

• 4 ripe plum tomatoes, chopped in half
• 2 cloves garlic, peeled & smashed
• 1/2 cup sweet onion
• 1 jalapeño, seeded
• juice of one lime
• 1/4 tsp salt (to taste)
• 1/4 cup loosely packed cilantro

Put all the ingredients in your food processor, and pulse it a few times. Not too much! You still want it to be a little chunky. If you don’t have a processor or blender, that’s fine, just chop everything up as small as you can, and mix it together in a bowl. It’ll taste the same, but the consistency won’t be as saucy. Don’t worry! Also, let your salsa chill out in the fridge for a while for the best flavor.

I was thinking of other items that would be good in this bowl: corn, marinated carrots & jalapeños, jicama and sweet potatoes all come to mind.  And most definitely a little avocado. We’ve had really bad luck with avocados lately, so I didn’t feel like spending $2 to see if we’d get something tasty or some gray-black mush. Ew!

I like it this way, though, with squash and beans just like the Anasazi would have eaten it! Though consuming dinner in a cliff-dwelling you carved yourself might make it taste even better.

Chorizo, Grits & Sweet Potato Biscuits

Oh, man, was this breakfast spicy. I actually couldn’t finish all of it, because my mouth was burning a little. I have to admit, that was slightly my fault, as I decided to take the extra step of dousing my already fiery chorizo with hot sauce. Still, tasty tasty. The chorizo had that distinct seitan flavor, which can be off-putting if you aren’t really used to it. But the texture was great–soft and squishy but not greasy. And the flavors were there, though I think most of the chorizo I’ve had had more of a kick to it. I’ll work on that.

Grits! I could write a love song to grits. Look at them, all fluffy yellow. The garlic (6 cloves!) was perfectly mellow, and the jalapeños weren’t too spicy. I did forget to add the salt while cooking, but just sprinkling it on at the end worked out perfectly. I also added more than the two tablespoons of nooch, because I freaking love that stuff. How could anything as weird as nutritional yeast taste that good? It looks like fish food. Ooh, I love it.

I’ve made the sweet potato biscuits about a million times, but this time I used whole white wheat flour. I bought a bag of it, thinking it was white flour, and now I’m trying to use it all up. I hate the texture of it. It’s very heavy and coarse, and everything I bake with it comes out grainy. So I mostly just use it for stuff like this, when I’m making a side dish and don’t really care if it’s perfect or not.

Recipes for sausages and grits are from Vegan Brunch, and the biscuits are in Appetite for Reduction.