Sweet Potato Hash with Black Beans

  
It's been a busy few weeks over here at Burp! And, for the most part, it hasn't been the usual sort of busy.

Peef underwent surgery on October 9th to remove a  benign tumor in his parotid/salivary gland. Although it was a delicate procedure (lots of facial nerves impacted) and long (5 hours!) surgery, I'm more than happy to report that things went well, and he's on his way to a full recovery.

He felt well enough last week after his stitches were removed that we were able to tag along on a series of tours with the Wisconsin Milk Marketing Board.  We chatted with  cheese makers from Widmer's Cheese Cellars and Crave Brothers Cheese.  And we took lots of photos!  We'll share some on the blog in the next few days.

Needless to say, we haven't been particularly inclined to go all out with our cooking lately.

Fortunately, when life gets a little crazy, we have a nice selection of one dish meals that never fail to save the day. They're generally quick and easy -- and if we're slick, we can squeeze our protein and vegetables in all at the same time.

Traditionally made from a coarse mixture of meat, potatoes and onions, hash is staple comfort food at its best. This vegetarian version makes the most of autumn flavors – butter-roasted sweet potatoes, black beans, onions and red peppers pulled together with a cacophony of Southwestern spices.

It's chock full of protein, fiber, and plenty of vitamins from the sweet potatoes and red peppers. And it's pretty versatile.

Top this hash with sour cream and salsa for a delicious vegetarian dinner. Serve it for breakfast with poached or fried eggs, or enjoy it as a light lunch with a side salad. Leftovers make a great filling for burritos or enchiladas.

Sweet potato hash with black beans

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Spring Comfort Food: Mexican Bean Pot with Spinach & Chorizo

Spring in Wisconsin is always an interesting proposition. While the weather improves overall, there's no telling what any given day might hold -- rain, flurries, sun, or clouds.  It's also difficult to tell from day to day what the temperature is going to be like.    As the saying goes, Wisconsin is one of the only states where you can experience all four seasons in the span of a week (or less)!

This recipe is for the damp, cool days of spring.  The ones that still leave you longing for a bit of warm comfort food.  And it's the perfect recipe for someone who wants to try out cooking beans from scratch.  If you've never done so, I think you'll be pleasantly surprised by the texture of home cooked beans -- which are a bit more firm than canned beans, and (IMHO) infinitely more flavorful. There's also a chance that the beans are infinitely more nutritious -- but, I'll leave that to the discernment of the experts who can actually measure such things.  The fact is, I cook my beans from scratch because they taste good.

Of course, my technique (as with many other things) for cooking beans, is still a work in progress. For example, the jury is still out for me on whether or not to soak beans.  Soaking definitely cuts down on the cooking time, but I'm not certain that it bears much other benefit. Lately, I've been ignoring the pre-soaking -- particularly for black beans, which seem to lose a great deal of color when soaked. As a result, I tend to cook my beans on the weekend, when I have plenty of time to wait for them to cook.  I've also been adding a strip or two of kombu (seaweed) to my beans as they cook. Like other seaweeds, kombu contains trace minerals -- which give a nutritional boost to the beans.  It also contains enzymes that reportedly help to break down the raffinose sugars in beans (the cause of excessive gas and bloating), increasing digestability.   The added nutritional benefit is enough for me -- but if it happens to also reduce some of the unpleasant side effects associated with beans, all the better.

This particular bean pot was inspired by a lazy afternoon when the rain was coming down in torrents outside the window.  Fresh Mexican-style chorizo was on sale at the Outpost, and I had almost two pounds of spinach languishing in the refrigerator.  I wasn't in the mood for soup -- but I was seriously craving a pot of beans.

I cooked the beans simply -- in plenty of water with a large red onion and some garlic cloves. I let them cook gently in my dutch oven for most of the afternoon -- pausing to test every 15-20 minutes during the last stages of cooking. Black beans are done when the skin easily gives way when pressed between two fingers, and the creamy flesh oozes out in a fantastic display of nutty deliciousness.

When the beans were nearly cooked, I sauteed a bit of chorizo and a large red pepper.  I also pulled out a 15 oz can of chopped fire roasted tomatoes and a couple of chipotle peppers, which I chopped finely.  I added everything to the cooked beans with a bit of salt, and allowed them to simmer for about 20 minutes -- just to let the flavors meld. Then, I added the chopped spinach.

Once the spinach was wilted, I removed the pot from the flame, and spooned the beans into bowls, topping them liberally with cilantro and a nice squeeze of fresh lime.

We scooped up our beans into warm tortillas, slurping up the flavorful sauces as they dripped.

The sheer simplicity of this dish made it an immediate favorite.  Seasoned with little more than the spices from the chorizo, a hint of sweetness from the red bell pepper, and a bit of smoky heat from the chipotles, this was one of the best pots of beans I'd ever eaten.   And it was even better the next day for lunch, alongside a cheese and jalapeno quesadilla.

Excellent paired with a well-mixed margarita with plenty of lime. 

Mexican Bean Pot with Spinach & Chorizo


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Mexican Squash Casserole

Last weekend, a look down in our basement pantry told us that we still had a BOATLOAD of winter squash to eat before we start mowing down on delicacies like fresh spring asparagus. So, we decided we'd better get back on the squash bandwagon. Fortunately for us, squash is a pretty versatile veggie.

Unfortunately, after eating it as a side dish, throwing it into chili, making it the star of a Thai-style curry, and pureeing batches and batches of it for soup, we were pretty tapped out on the idea front. Fortunately, a handful of kitchen staples came to the rescue.

We happened to have a handful of kale, the end of a bag of frozen corn, a can of black beans, some onions, and a few stale tortilla chips lying around. Without thinking too hard about it, I decided we might be able to create a reasonably decent dinner.

I cubed up the squash, tossed it with olive oil and chili powder, and tossed it in the oven for about 25 minutes to roast. Meanwhile, I sauteed the kale with an onion and a few cloves of garlic. I added a bit of cumin, some red pepper flakes, and a teaspoon or two of Mexican oregano.

When the squash was finished roasting, we threw everything together with the frozen corn and the black beans. It made a lovely little melange.
A grating of cheese and a sprinkling of crunched tortilla chips, and we were ready to throw the impromptu casserole into the oven.
We each took a big scoop of the finished casserole -- which was just cheesy enough to attract Paul's attention, and colorful enough to make me want to take a series of photos. But it didn't just look great, it also smelled fantastic. Sweet and smoky, with a hint of toasted corn from the chips, we were pretty intrigued. I blobbed a bit of fresh avocado on mine and took a taste.
I have to be honest, I wasn't expecting much from this dish. I had little doubt it would be edible, but I had absolutely no idea it would become what Paul affectionately calls a "kickasserole". This was seriously good impromtu food -- pretty healthy, chock full of veg and fiber, and seriously delish. I probably don't need to tell you that we mowed quite happily that night.

And then, we mowed again -- eating the succulent leftovers the next morning. Prepared quite simply with an egg on top, some sour cream, and a liberal sprinkling of siracha... this casserole made some seriously good brunch food.

Who knew all that "leftover" squash could taste this good?


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Black Bean Burgers with ... harissa!

Harissa being the flavor of the moment over at our house, I've been stretching my usual repertoire to include more of this beloved condiment. We've been eating blobs with roasted veggies, smearing it on sammiches, eating it with eggs, and spreading it hither and yon.

Turns out we're not the only ones enjoying harissa. A quick blog search turned up a number of posts about this delightful chile-heavy condiment.

• Foodie at Fifteen (now 16) is eating it for breakfast, among other things
  
• Kevin over at Closet Cooking is roasting squash with harissa (yum!)
  
• Holler from Tinned Tomatoes made some delicious looking Spicy Harissa Coleslaw AND
  
• Barry at The Family Cook Book is making lamb stew with harissa and chickpeas

Being in the mood for sammiches, we decided to try our hand at black bean burgers with harissa posted by Becky over at Becky and the Beanstalk. And she gets a big shout out from the both of us.

These were some of the best veggie burgers we've ever tried. In addition to being tasty, they were quite attractive, held together very well (particularly as bean burgers go), and were a cinch to throw together.
We liked the idea of serving the burgers on whole grain buns with goat cheese and avocado, but we decided to kick things up a notch by mixing together a bit of leftover harissa with the goat cheese to make a spread. OH YUM... what a discovery. Can't wait to serve this delicious spread on crackers at our next get together.
The burgers were pleasantly spicy with good texture. They held up to the whole grain buns well, and a slice or two of avocado was the perfect condiment. Absolutely lovely (and healthy) when served with a side of Blasted Broccoli. This is a vegetarian burger that even a carnivore would love.

Next time, we'll have to try out the 5 minute buns...


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Winter Comfort: Black Bean Chili with Mushrooms

It was four winters ago now that I discovered this fantastic chili recipe. I remember it well. I was sorting through cooking magazines on a Saturday afternoon when I came upon a copy of the new Eating Well. A long-time fan of the magazine, I was bummed out when they ceased publication in 1999 -- and equally thrilled when they revived the magazine in 2002. Although the new publication turned out to be a far cry from the original, I still enjoyed the intelligent articles and occasionally found a recipe that gave me inspiration.

Glancing through the recipes, I saw black bean mushroom chili... and I was intrigued enough to give the ingredient list a peek. Cardamom & mustard seeds... interesting. Tomatillos... nice. At the time, the recipe was a bit of a stretch for us; but, we were adventurous sorts. And it seemed to give us another option for using up all that quick roasted tomatillo sauce in the freezer.

I'm actually NOT a big fan of the crockpot, but I'm a huge fan of frying spices. So, when I saw that the instructions called for a nice singe on the mustard seeds, I was hopelessly hooked.
The first indication that the recipe would be a winner was the smell of the house when we walked in after a long day's work and found the chili bubbling away. Rich, savory... meaty even.
Spooning the soup into bowls, we noted that the color was fabulous. The beans were creamy and flavorful. And that cardamom? Well, it disappeared seamlessly into the dish, imparting intrigue to a soup that might otherwise have fallen a bit flat.
It's gotten to be such a staple around our house that I almost don't need a recipe. In fact, we've departed so far from the original in this case that I actually sat down the other night and typed out the entire process.
Try it for yourself!
Black Bean Chili with Mushrooms


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VegHead Chili

When we got home from Dallas, we surveyed the contents of the refrigerator.

• 2 small red cabbages (from our CSA booty)
• a few locally grown carrots
• 2 sleek leeks (locally grown, obtained at the co-op)
• a bunch of peppers (both sweet and hot) from the garden
• some lonely celery (I do not believe this was local...!!)
• 1 locally grown butternut squash (OK, not in the fridge... but close)
• a few onions (from last week's farmer's market)

Alright, alright. The outlook was better than expected. But, it still presented a few challenges for an entire week of eating.

Fortunately, I was saved by a few of my freezer staples: frozen roasted tomatoes from last summer's CSA and a bag of grilled corn (from earlier this summer when we were eating corn on the cob by the boatload). We also have a well-stocked pantry, so cans of beans (from MI), and spices (from Penzey's) were also readily available.

HaHA! I shouted (accompanied, of course, by the prerequisite menacing grin). And I began chopping.
Somewhere along the line, three beans escaped from their respective cans and posed for me on the cutting board... so I took a photo.
And a beer from Viking Brewery flung itself out of the fridge. So, I decided to make use of him. He turned out to be a secret ingredient (though I'm fairly certain that an ordinary stout would do in a pinch).
I roasted up a few poblanos from the garden, tossed in a few jalapenos. And WA-LA! Veg-head chili.
The cheese on top is truly gratuitous, considering the already delicious nature of this chili. But, we couldn't resist being a little bit indulgent.

This chili was a winner this week, not only because it tasted great, but also because it made a large enough pot to provide lots of leftovers for lunch (and another dinner).

If you're interested in the basic recipe, I'll share.
Veg-head Chili


NOTE on the Viking Hot Chocolate Beer: Pretty interesting stuff. A bit sweet for my taste -- which is why it ended up in the chili, rather than directly down the hatch. But, I like the adventurous folks over there at Viking. They get thumbs up for originality.



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