from somewhere in my imagination

Black Bean Chilli Sans Carne - Meatless Monday

Mexican style food is awesome in the USA.  You can even find fast food style Mexican that rocks.  Chipotle was our favourite.  The black beans you get in your burritos are amazing.  It took a while for me to figure out a method for making black beans for burritos, I couldn’t find anything that didn’t use tinned black beans, and I’ve found the dried ones much easier to find.  I’ll tell you about black beans for burritos another day though.

A month or so ago I bought Hugh Fearnley-Whittingsall’s Veg Every Day.  Oh my golly.  There is enough inspiration in that book to have me happily vegetarian for weeks trying out recipes.  There is a recipe for pinto bean chilli in there that looked pretty appealing but I wanted to make a black bean version, with slightly different flavours…allspice, red wine and oregano didn’t seem quite right for the taste I was looking for.

So tonight we feasted on Black Bean Chilli and it was good...unfortunately photos of black/brown food are hard to getting looking good ;)

Black Bean Chilli - Serves 4-6

Ingredients

2 ½ cups of dried Black Beans, rinsed and soaked in water overnight

2 Tins diced or whole tomatoes

3 Capsicums, diced as finely or chunky as you desire

2 Red onions, diced

3-4 cobs of corn, cooked and kernels cut off

2 Tbs Olive Oil

3 cloves garlic, crushed

1 Tbs ground Cumin

1 Tbs Ground Coriander

1 Tsp Ground Cinnamon, or two cinnamon sticks

Bunch fresh coriander

2 Limes

As much chilli as you want.  I used about 2-3 tsp dried chilli flakes.  You might want to use more or less dried, some fresh or even chilli powder for serious kablammo

Method

Heat the olive oil in a large saucepan and fry off the onions, capsicums and garlic until they are starting to soften

Add in spices and chilli and stir to coat the onions and capsicums and get the spices toasting

Tip in your drained but still wet soaked black beans and stir again

Add the tins of tomatoes followed by 2 tins of water

Leave to simmer until the beans are soft, this will take a while depending on how much bite you like in your beans

Alternatively you could tip the lot into your slow cooker and leave it to bubble away until dinner time.

You might need to add a bit of extra water towards the end of the cooking.  Throw in the corn a couple of minutes before serving, more to heat it up than cook.

Stir through the chopped fresh coriander and juice of two limes just before serving.

To Serve

I served it up in bowls with guacamole, grated cheese, salsa (because we were out of jalapenos) and some organic corn chips to sweeten the deal for the kids.  I couldn't convince Sebastian there was no meat involved and the girls all loved it.

You could use it in place of meat in burritos or tacos.

The leftovers are amazing heated up in a ramekin with an egg cracked in the middle huevos rancheros style, hello lunch tomorrow!

I’m loving cooking more vego meals, I aiming to get the count up to 3 regular vego days a week.  I’m also enjoying some cooking sessions with my wonderful friend Ali via instagram.  Want to jump in the kitchen with us?  A big instagram cooking session, how much fun would that be?

I'm linking up with Veggie Mama for meatless Monday.  Happy Days!

Tatum xx

What's For Dinner? - Salmon Fish Cakes with Green Bean Salad

Fish.

I love fish, I love it in a dish.  I love it in a pie, I love it in the sky.  I love it from a tin, I love it with my kin.  I love it when it's fresh, that makes it especially spesh.

I love fish.

Except when I don't.

I'd like to say that we eat our weekly recommended dose of fish, but the truth is we don't.  Our main source of fish would be tuna from a tin, sometimes I'll crave it and buy up big at the market and then I won't feel like it at all so it ends up in the freezer.  So, it's fair to say, sometimes I love it and can't get enough and sometimes I can't stomach even the thought of it.

I'd bought 1kg of salmon pieces at the market, end of day deal...I always love a good end of day market bargain!  I fully intended to make skewers for the BBQ with it but it didn't happen so it ended up in the freezer.

We do love a good fish cake in our family so I dragged it out the other week and made up some fresh salmon fish cakes.

You don't have to use fresh salmon, you could easily substitute 400g-500g tinned good salmon or tuna for the fresh fish.

Salmon Fish Cakes with Green Bean Salad - Serves 4-6

Ingredients

Fish Cakes

500g Salmon Pieces, diced

Mashed potatoes made with 3-4 potatoes...plan ahead and make extra mash earlier in the week

1 bunch spring onions, trimmed washed and finely sliced

1 egg

3 Tbs fresh dill, finely chopped or 1 Tbs dried

Ground salt and pepper to taste

Breadcrumbs (for these I used panko crumbs, sometimes I grate bread from the freezer, the ordinary dried kind from the box are fine too)

Yoghurt Sauce

3/4 cup Greek yoghurt

1/2 cup sour cream

4 Tbs chopped capers

2 Tbs chopped fresh dill

Juice of 1 lemon

Freshly ground pepper to taste

Green Bean Salad

500g Green Beans, trimmed

2-3 roasted red capsicums depending on size, feel free to use the ones in the jar...I use the always fresh fire roasted red peppers for this salad more often than not

100g toasted almonds

150g danish feta

Balsamic vinegar...or better still some of this stuff, it's ah-may-zing

Method

Fish Cakes

Mix together all the ingredients except the crumbs.

Shape into 6 equal patties.

Roll in crumbs and pop in the fridge to 'set' for about 1/2 hour while you make the bean salad and yoghurt sauce.

To make the yoghurt sauce you just mix all the ingredients together.  see below for the green bean salad.

Heat a small amount of olive oil, just enough so that they don't stick) in a frying pan and brown the fish cakes on each side before transferring to a 180C oven to finish cooking through (about 5-10 minutes depending on how fat you make them and how well browned they are).

As an alternative to the frying pan you can brush with olive oil and cook in the oven for about 15 minutes, flipping over about halfway through the cooking time to ensure both sides get crispy.

Serve with bean salad and a big dollop of the yoghurt sauce.

Green Bean Salad

Quickly blanche your beans in boiling water, you want them to be bright green and not soggy.  Put them straight into cold water after you have drained them.

Toast your almonds, I do this in my microwave one minute at a time, shaking the nuts in between zaps to rearrange them.  It usually takes about 3 x 1 minute for whole almonds.

Slice your skinned and de-seeded roasted capsicums into long strips

Put the beans and capsicum strips into a serving bowl or platter, crumble over the feta, drizzle on some balsamic mix and finish with the nuts.

Enjoy

Tatum xx

PS...please excuse my Dr Seuss moment at the start, I was feeling a little silly ;)

What's For Dinner? - Quinoa Tabbouleh with Chicken

Since we moved I have been more about 'getting by' than doing new things in the kitchen...there have been a few new things here and there but nothing that I think is inspired enough to have shared, with the hot weather in Adelaide last week a 'fancy salad' served with some meat off the BBQ was our staple.

Late last year I guest posted for the lovely lovely Diminishing Lucy with this Quinoa Tabbouleh, it's yummy and nice and light for anyone counting calories :)  The perfect sort of thing for a warm summer evening...I'm sure that someone is having one somewhere in Australia this week because it's not Adelaide's turn!

Over the years I have heard quite alot about quinoa, often hearing it referred to as a 'superfood'.  As much as I love food I can be a bit reluctant to try new things, in case they taste awful!

I recently (finally) tried quinoa for the first time and am a total convert!  It is expensive compared to other grains (I'm talking $6-$7 for 500g at the supermarket...look in the health food section) but a little goes a long way.

After cooking up my first batch I quickly had ideas for plenty of other ways to use it.  I'll definitely be using it as a substitute for rice in dishes like pilaf and sushi and it's also a great replacement for cous cous.  I don't think my family would notice if I served it with curry instead of rice and I'm pretty sure I could get away with replacing it as the side to stir fry.

For my first experiment I 'replaced' the cracked wheat you would normally use in tabbouleh and incorporated chicken to make an 'all in one' warm salad.

Quinoa Tabbouleh with Chicken - Serves 4, 320 calories/serve

 

Ingredients

150g (raw weight) quinoa

300g Chicken Breast, preferably free range

50g Low Fat greek yoghurt

1 tsp Sumac

1 punnet Cherry tomatoes, halved

 2 lebanese cucumbers, peeled and cut into batons

1 large, wholemeal pita bread, toasted in hot oven for about 7 minutes until golden brown.

Leaves from 1 bunch flat leaf parsley, washed well.

Juice of 1 lemon

Method

Mix together the yoghurt and sumac, use to coat the chicken breast and set aside while you get started on the quinoa and chop the tomatoes and cucumber.

Cook the quinoa in water according to the instructions on the packet.  Be careful not to overcook it because it will get a bit mushy.

Drain the quinoa and leave it to cool.

Heat a grill plate or the barbecue and cook the chicken breast.  Leave aside to rest.

Wash the parsley well and pick the leaves from the bunch.

Toast the pita bread in a hot oven until golden brown and crispy.

In a large serving bowl mix together the tomatoes, cucumber and quinoa.

Add the chicken, parsley and lemon juice.  Finish with the broken up pita bread and season to taste with freshly cracked pepper.

Serve to the table, divide into serving bowls and dig in.

Hope you give the keen-wah a go and enjoy it as much as we did!

Tatum xx