All posts filed under: beans

Quinoa and Black Bean Stuffed Poblano Peppers

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There are lots of reasons that you are going to love this dish!  I love it because it’s a healthy, meatless, dish that can stand on its own, but at the same time, it can also be a great side dish for your favorite protein.  What I love most about this dish is that it is SPICY!  I love spicy food, but I didn’t want the dish to be all about the heat.  What I wanted to do was create lots of flavor to compliment that heat!  So, to do that, I tucked little bits of heat into each component, layering flavors and spice, creating an end result that won’t leave you breathing fire or reaching for the nearest glass of milk! Typically, when you see a poblano pepper, it’s in the form of a chile relleno that you find at your favorite Mexican restaurant.  The chile is stuffed with cheese, dipped in batter and deep fried.  Now, I don’t have anything against foods that are filled with cheese and deep fried, but realistically, that’s just not going to …

White Bean and Turkey Chili and a Forced Rest Period

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It’s been a little over a week since the last recipe I posted and I wanted fill you in as to where I’ve been.  Well, for the most part, I’ve been on my couch, wearing my floppiest, baggiest clothes and sleeping on and off–believe me, I wish I were off doing something a lot more fun. Last Friday I underwent a major surgical procedure and was in the hospital for a few days, but now I’m at home recovering.  It’s so difficult to sit still and do nothing, but at the same time, doing just about anything tires me out so much that I just end up, well, sitting still and doing nothing anyway.  Every day, I feel a tiny bit better, although the overachiever in me thinks I should be up and about and back to normal by now!  This could not be farther from the truth and even surfing Pinterest tires me out!   Good thing I have Season 3 of Downton Abbey to catch up on!   So, while I don’t have …

Fagioli, Cipolle e Tonno — Grilled Tuna and White Bean Salad

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I first had this very simple tuna and white bean salad at Chef Carla Pellegrino’s Neapolitan restaurant, Bratalian.   It was so delicious that I had to ask the manager what was in it.  I was shocked to learn that the simplest ingredients: lemon, olive oil, salt and pepper, were what made it so good!  After having it at the restaurant, I set out to recreate the dish and now it’s a weekday staple dinner for us.  The base of the salad is peppery arugula dressed with a drizzle of olive oil, fresh lemon juice, salt and freshly ground black pepper.  The main part of the salad is juicy grilled tuna paired with creamy cannellini beans, crisp red onion and celery. This salad is crazy-good and amazingly simple to make.  I usually use canned whole white albacore tuna for this dish, but today I used fresh tuna, because I had a thought that it would be even more amazing–and it did not disappoint.  I think from now on I will use fresh tuna whenever possible. …

Chipotle Black Bean Soup

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Sometimes there’s just nothing better than a piping-hot bowl of soup.  I think I have a little alarm bell in my stomach that starts ringing for soup any time the weather dips below 85 degrees or there are clouds in the sky–and if it rains, forget it! You can be sure I’ll be having soup for dinner.  That being said, I made soup last night when it was well above 85 degrees and sunny, but it so happened that I had an exciting event to attend yesterday evening and I needed to make a really quick dinner before heading out.  This chipotle black bean soup comes together very quickly, thanks to the use of a few convenience foods, such as canned black beans and tomatoes.  If you have a food processor, then you can really save some time chopping the onions, garlic and chipotle peppers.  Like any soup, the flavor is even better the following day, so if you have the time to make it ahead, definitely do so. The inspiration for this soup came …

Grilled Corn and Black Bean Salad with Lime-Cilantro Vinaigrette

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We are now halfway through the summer and the bulk of our summer vegetables have completed their season.  As much as I hated to admit it, the time had come to put part of the garden out of its misery.  We cut down almost all of the tomato plants, leaving only the green zebra and the yellow pear to finish out their yield.  Recently I learned on our local NPR program, Desert Bloom that by cutting the tomatoes almost all the way down and mulching them,  we may get a second round of tomatoes in September.  So, that’s what we did this morning and boy, was I sentimental about it!  I’m going to pause  now for a moment of reflection on our first real summer crop and a remembrance of the herbs that perished during the heatwave:  Purple Sage, English Thyme, French Thyme, Biergarten Sage, Greek Oregano. They served us well and died spectacularly–seriously, they turned white and disintegrated!  115 degrees will do that to tender herbs! Reminiscing on how pretty everything was just 6 weeks …

Grilled Scallops with Cannellini Beans and Salsa Verde

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After many weeks fraught with anticipation and often disappointment, we were finally able to grow one full-sized zucchini!  Now, to those of you who are out there, baskets fully laden with summer squash, hauling all your abundance to the neighbors: don’t laugh at my one, single zucchini.  Well,  used to be one–we ate it with a quickness the other night alongside a salad of greens, cannellini beans and grilled scallops, and you know what? It was delicious; and we knew where it came from and it was free of pesticides.  There are a few more zucchinis forming on the vine now, so once again, I have high hopes that we’ll get some more soon!  Until then, I guess we’ll have to figure out something else to eat! One large zucchini! Provenance known! I’d like to share another amazing, intensely flavored sauce with you that is incredible alongside seafood, called “salsa verde”. Salsa Verde an Italian sauce made from a base of parsley, garlic, capers, anchovies, olive oil and bread.  The recipe is adapted from the …

Epic Lentil Salad

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Memorial Day Weekend is over and we are back on the healthy eating train.  We kind of pigged out this weekend.  We ate red meat; deep-fried things; things made with boatloads of butter.  We ate All The Things.  So, I took an extra day off and with the goal of setting things to rights, I made this salad.  I was inspired by a photo I saw posted on the internet of someone’s lunch at Los Angeles restaurant.  I thought to myself: This salad is perfect.  This salad is epic.  It is so epic that it might just be The One Salad.  The salad that would undo the nutritional damage of a holiday weekend in one meal.  Ok, maybe it didn’t do all that, but it certainly made us feel way more virtuous than where we were late Monday night.  My salad contained lentils, chickpeas, asparagus, orange and yellow bell pepper, jicama, carrots and tomatoes, but the beauty of it is that you can use whatever vegetables you want! A few months ago I happened to …