Tag Archives: black beans

Black and white hummus

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I’ve been having some fun experimenting with different bean bases for hummus lately. (Yes, that’s my idea of fun. Go ahead, tell me I’m weird.) Traditional hummus is made with chickpeas, but the variations are pretty limitless when you switch up the bean.

Black bean hummus takes on south of the border flavors when you add a fistful of chopped cilantro and some chipotle chili powder. Omit the tahini you might use in typical hummus and use olive oil and some of the bean liquid to make it move in the food processor. Be generous with the cilantro if it’s your thing, or lean into the chipotle.

black-bean-hummus

With white beans, I love to use avocado to make it creamy. A bit of cayenne goes a long way here.

white-bean-hummus

The wonderful thing about these is that you can experiment with ingredients as you go until it gets smooth.

A few fledgling tips:

  • Use canned beans or soak and cook them from scratch. Here it’s good to overcook them somewhat so they are soft and mushy, since you’ll be running them through the food processor.
  • Don’t forget salt and pepper.
  • Do lots of taste tests with different dipping vehicles: red or green peppers, carrot sticks, whole grain chips, crackers, bread, pita chips… use your imagination!

Demystifying: Beans

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Yes, you can get beans in a can, but they’re bulky and heavy to carry home from the store (both issues for consideration for us city-dwellers!), plus not as cost-effective and often higher in sodium. Not to mention that homemade have a much better texture and flavor than canned. But they can certainly be intimidating.

The nice thing about beans is that once you’ve figured out how to make one kind, you can pretty much make any kind. The time it takes to cook them will depend heavily on the size, but once you get the basics down, you’ll realize how easy it is. I like to make a big pot over the weekend — they’ll keep in the fridge for several days, but I also like to stick some in the freezer for a pinch.

The first step is to rinse the dried beans and pick through them for any rocks or debris. This does actually happen, since they come from the ground and so do rocks. Not a big deal; just throw them out.

Next is soaking the beans. Honestly, I don’t even soak lentils because they cook so quickly I just don’t think it’s worth it, but for larger beans, it does make them cook faster and end up softer. To soak, just cover the rinsed beans in a pot with about 2 inches of water. Some prefer to soak overnight, but I almost never think that far in advance and I’m also impatient. Thus, I usually use the hot soak method, which means that you bring the water to a boil and then turn it off for an hour or two.

After soaking, drain the soaking water. Here’s where it gets fun — you can flavor the beans as they cook in a lot of different ways. You can use broth instead of water, for example. You can add in some vegetables or a cooked meat. Or you can just make them in water, but you’ll want to add some salt to boost the flavor. If you’re thinking of adding any spices, hold off until after they’re cooked and you’ve drained the cooking water. It’s okay if you want to stick to just water or broth for the first try, but get creative as you keep making it.

Cover the soaked beans again with a couple of inches of liquid. Cover the pot. Bring the liquid to a boil, then turn it all the way down to low. Cook it with the cover on until the beans are soft. A small bean like a lentil will cook very quickly, probably between 20-30 minutes, whereas a larger one will take longer. Once you can pierce them with a fork, taste them and see how soft they are. You’ll likely want them a bit firmer (think al dente pasta) if you’re going to continue to cook them as part of a recipe, but if you’re pureeing or mashing them (think hummus), you’ll want them softer so they blend up nicely.

Once they’re cooked to your liking, simply drain and prepare as you like. Here are a few recipes you can try:

bean recipes

Lentils and tomatoes
Avocado and white bean tomato sandwich
Breakfast burrito
Black bean burrito bowl
Spicy weeknight turkey chili
Curried lentils with butternut squash
Falafel: deconstructed
Chilis rellenos
Santa Fe stuffed pepper

What’s your favorite way to prepare beans?

Colorful fiesta salsa

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I just had to post a quick note about the salsa I enjoyed tonight. I had some very colorful veggies and threw them all together — an orange tomato, a red tomato, about a third of a red onion, corn, and a few slices of a gorgeous purple pepper I found at Eastern Market this morning. (It’s light green on the inside, almost like an eggplant.) Squirt in a bit of lime juice, press a garlic clove in there, sprinkle on some cilantro with salt and pepper and a few red pepper flakes, and voila!

We noshed on this tonight with chips for an appetizer and then used the rest on shrimp and black bean tacos with avocado.

And in case you’re wondering, yes, margaritas were also involved.

Black bean burrito bowl

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Yes, I’m a fan of alliteration. But mostly, I was just hungry and tired after a long, rainy run tonight. (But inspired – did anyone else see the view of the Lincoln Memorial and Rosslyn from the Monument this evening? Dark, stormy and awesomely terrifying. Wish I had my camera. But I digress.)

Back to my point. Rainy run ramification: ravenous runner. (Alliteration again; altogether annoying. Okay, I’ll stop now.) I threw together this delicious black bean burrito bowl and it took all of five minutes. Win-win.

Black bean burrito bowl

Ingredients:

1/4 cup canned black beans, undrained
1/2 tsp olive oil
1 leaf kale, rinsed and dried (you could also use spinach, but I prefer kale)
1/4 cup cooked brown rice
1/4 cup corn
hot sauce, to taste
a liberal sprinkle of taco seasoning
avocado
salsa
plain nonfat yogurt

1. Heat up the beans in a small pot over medium-low heat.

2. Meanwhile, heat the olive oil in a small pan over medium heat.

3. Shred the kale into fairly small pieces and add them to the pan with the oil. Stir them often so they don’t burn.

4. As the kale begins to cook down, throw in the rice and the corn.

5. Sprinkle a bit of taco seasoning and a splash of hot sauce over the pan and stir.

6. When the pan mixture and the beans are heated through (it took me about 3-4 minutes), remove from heat and spoon it into a bowl.

7. Top with salsa, yogurt (or sour cream) and sliced avocado.

Serves one.

I know the photo doesn’t have any avocado on it, but that’s because I ate it all last time I made this. (Aka last night.)

Fish tacos

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I just got back from a week in Hawaii, which was preceded by a longer trip for work and to visit family a couple weeks earlier. I went to the store when I got back on Thursday and stocked up my apartment with pretty much every kind of fresh food imaginable, since I haven’t been home cooking a whole lot and haven’t felt free to just buy whatever I wanted because it would go to waste. So Thursday night, I roasted a couple of salmon fillets with garlic and cilantro, then made a cilantro yogurt sauce to top it off.

Today, I took some of the leftover salmon and made a fish taco. Please excuse the awful photo; my camera battery died this afternoon and I couldn’t find my charger, so I used the camera on my laptop. (Of course, my charger turned up right after I finished lunch. Go figure.)

Fish taco ingredients:

1 soft whole wheat taco
1 large spoonful canned corn
1 large spoonful canned black beans
a piece of salmon a little smaller than the palm of your hand, cooked
a few slices of bell pepper (I used frozen, pre-sliced)
3 heaping spoonfuls of salsa
a few slices of avocado
a few cilantro leaves, chopped
1 1/2 tablespoons cilantro yogurt dressing (see recipe below)

1. Heat up the salmon in the microwave if it just came out of the fridge.

2. Spray a cooking pan and warm it over medium heat. Cook the peppers.

3. Add the beans and corn and stir until they are warmed through.

4. Add salsa and stir until some of the liquid evaporates.

5. Meanwhile, toast the tortilla in a toaster oven until it’s a bit crispy.

6. Layer the bean mixture over half the tortilla.

7. Flake the salmon with a fork and layer it over the bean mixture.

8. Drizzle cilantro yogurt over the top, then layer on chopped cilantro and avocado.

9. Fold over the other half of the taco.

Serves one.

Cilantro yogurt sauce ingredients:

1/4 cup plain, nonfat yogurt
a fistful of cilantro leaves
salt and pepper

(This can be made to taste. For example, since I only had nonfat yogurt and it was kind of thin, I added a bit of cottage cheese as well to thicken it up. I bet it would be good with lime, too, had I had one lying around. Use your instincts.)

1. Blend all ingredients together in a food processor until smooth.

One thing to note, if I haven’t before. When I buy canned corn for things like this (burritos, taco salad, etc), I buy the plain sweet canned corn, not the creamed or the no-salt-added versions. I tried the no-salt-added once because I noticed that the regular kind has sugar added, too, and I figured I’d be healthy. It’s a million times better when you use the sweet corn, though. I allow myself that small indulgence.

A chicken soup day

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After a bad experience with something I ate at yesterday that resulted in a brief visit to the ER, my stomach was feeling a bit raw today. After testing the waters with a small bowl of oatmeal and some toast, I wanted something with a bit more substance this afternoon. Specifically, I was craving Self.com’s tortilla chicken soup, which I had made a few months back and loved. The recipe is missing a piece online, I think–it references a salsa but doesn’t give the ingredients for it. Judging by the picture, the salsa is made of black beans, avocados and corn, so that’s what I’ve been using.

Since the soup is broth based, it was light enough to go easy on an uneasy belly, but it can also easily be beefed up with more of the salsa–which is what I’ll be doing as I go through the leftovers this week.

I skipped the jalapeño this time, but threw in one of these little sweet red peppers I bought at the Bethesda Central Farm Market this morning–so cute! The recipe makes a lot, so I stuck the leftovers in the fridge. Last time I made this soup, it basically fed me all week.

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