Black Bean Soup with Mango Relish

I bought a bunch of dried beans a few weeks ago at the organic market by my house. I used them in some amazing chili, which sadly never made it to the blog. But I'd been really wanting to use the black beans separately, and I was hoping to come up with something involving mango and rice. So I Googled black bean mango rice recipe and came up with this Cuban Black Bean Soup with Mango Relish.

Unsurprisingly, I didn't have a lot of the ingredients. So I improvised and made it my own way. The ingredients I used:

1TB olive oil
2 diced red onions
4 chopped garlic cloves
1-2TB chili powder (I ran out of cumin...)
2tsp fresh chopped ginger
1 cup dried black beans, soaked overnight
6-8 cups water
1 tablespoon red wine vinegar
salt

I sauteed the onions and garlic in the olive oil until clear and soft and then added 4 cups of water, the beans, the vinegar, some of the salt and chili powder, and 1tsp of the ginger. I cooked it for 30 minutes or so and then added more salt, chili powder, and ginger. I scooped out some of the beans and blended the rest of the mixture until smooth. I added back in the beans and some additional water, which turned out to be too much.

As the beans cooked I made 1cup of whole grain rice and the mango relish, which I decided to change a little.

1 mango, diced
3 roma tomatoes
juice of one lime
3 scallions
5 or 6 leaves of purpil basil
.5tsp ginger
pinch of salt

I scooped the rice into my mug (all of my bowls were in the dishwasher, which necessitated the mug, which refused to produce a good photo for me), added the soup, and topped with the relish. The soup on its own was not amazing. But the relish made it stellar.

Memorial Day Dilemma

I was invited to a Memorial Day potlock with 4 hours notice. Normally that would be plenty of time to go to the grocery store (which was on my list of things to do anyway) and come up with something yummy to make. However, I opted instead to go on a bike ride.



So before I took my bike out, I was waiting for my mom to call me and thought I'd see if I could get started on something (plan B was to buy something, gasp!). I went to vegweb, my favorite for recipes, and checked out the potlucks and picnics category. I stumbled up the recipe for Three Bean Pasta Salad and did a quick inventory of food in my apartment. I thought I could pull something together.



I immediately cut up 4 cloves of garlic and smashed them into a paste, adding a little salt and olive oil to assist. I then let it marinate together in the fridge while I drained and washed a can each of black, garbanzo, and dark red kidney beans. I then decided to use up my baby carrots and carefully cut them up into thin strips. Very time consuming. I also defrosted some frozen cut zucchini that I randomly got the other day (I didn't know they made frozen zucchini). But it seemed seasonal.



I threw in the beans, zucchini, and carrots, then I added the olive oil/garlic mixture I'd made, carefuly not to add a lot of the garlic since I was pretty sure it would be garlicky. I also thought some dill would make a nice addition so I threw some dried dill in as well. I mixed, set in the fridge, added more olive oil and dill to the olive oil/garlic mixture, and went off on my bike ride.



When I came back, I cooked 1 cup of barley and steamed 12 stalks of asparagus. With the asparagus I decided to be fancy- I steamed them for just a couple of minutes and tossed them in an ice water bath. I see it all the time on TV and I'm really sure what it does, but it seemed apporpriate. And it cooked it down so I could add it to the dish. When the barley was done, I put it on a plate and stuck it in the freezer for 10 minutes or so to cool it down. I then added the barley and asparagus to the salad along with the olive oil/garlic/dill mixture and some salt. I'm so scared of over salting so I tried to minimalize the amount I added. It also had a strong garlicky taste, which is fine by me. Then I put it in the freezer just to make sure it's all cold enough.

It was pretty tasty and it lasted forever, which was great during my first week of tri training!

Kickoff Concoction: Fickin Fauxchos

I forgot it was Super Bowl Sunday until 6 p.m., when I turned it to the game and there was less than one minute left in the first quarter. OOPS! I guess this means no chance of attending a party or gathering of any sort. It's probably better that I don't show up to my interview tomorrow suffering from a "Bears Won (or Lost)!" appearance, i.e. still half-drunk.

In the spirit of the game however, I got a hankering for a ginormous plate of nachos. This was soon followed by the realization that I didn't have salsa, chips/tortillas, or really any makings for said nachos. But, being the Betty Crocker-wannabe that I am, I decided to improvise. Plus, I was frickin' starving.

I started by chopping up a bell pepper and an onion and sauteing them in olive oil with a little salt and lots of black pepper until they were really caramelized, some might say nearly burned. To this mixture, I added about 3 cloves of chopped garlic, cumin, chili powder, turmeric, and paprika. Like Veganne, I never measure spices, so I just put in a good pinch of each. I let this cook for a few minutes to bring the oils out of the spices some and get rid of the raw garlic flavor.

While this was going, I found a can of Eden organic unsalted, black beans, which are one of my favorite foods, in the pantry. In fact, my friends are sick of hearing me tout Amy's canned, refried black beans. I rinsed those off really well in cold water and put them in the blender.

When the onion/pepper mixture had cooled off a bit, I threw it in the blender with the beans, a couple pickled jalapeno slices, and a little more olive oil. I soon realized this wasn't mixing well, so I threw in a little cold water to help lubricate it. Haha.

I then rummaged through my pantry to figure out what my "chips" would be for these pseudo-nachos. I had lentils, quinoa, a box of tabouli mix, jasmine rice, brown rice, and couscous from which to choose. I figured that, since it is the Super Bowl, I could and would be bad, and went with the jasmine rice. I threw a half-cup of that in with a cup of water, brought it to a boil, rinsed it, and then put another cup of water in it to boil (this is a new trick I've started using to keep the rice from getting too sticky/mushy, which tends to be a problem with me and jasmine rice).

I remembered I had a bag of Morningstar Farms Chik'n Strips in the freezer, so I put some of those in the same pan I sauted my onion mix in and heated them through.

I piled about half the rice in the middle of my plate and put a generous slathering of bean mix on top, followed by a scoop of shredded cheese (yes, this wasn't vegan or low-cal), and then the "chicken." I took a few pics before shoveling it in my pie hole, and needless to say, it was delicious, though perhaps too garlicky. I know, I know, that seems impossible for me, but next time, I'll add a little less garlic and cook it a little longer. Also, I can't get enough spice, so I'd put a little more jalapeno and have salsa on hand. I accidentally left mine out on the counter the other night and was afraid I'd get dysentery or salmonella if I ate it, otherwise I would've. Guacamole would be good too, but I had my fill of avocado yesterday. All-in-all, it was a successful experiment. TOUCHDOWN! Fifteen yard penalty, SUCK IT!