Refried Black Beans and Spanish Rice

Refried Black Beans 

This is a recipe I found online today and adapted. I've been craving Mexican rice and beans recently and figured it couldn't be too hard to make. I like that there is no added fat or lard in this recipe besides what is naturally in the beans. 

Ingredients:

- 15 oz black beans (1 can)

- 1/4 cup water

- 1 tsp salt

- 1 tsp pepper

- 1/2 tsp cumin

- 2 cloves garlic crushed

- 1/4 onion diced

Rinse and drain 1 can black beans. Put 1/3 beans and water in medium pot on medium heat. While it is heating up mash the rest of the beans in a small bowl. (I used the back of fork). When the water is heated add the garlic, spices, onion and bean paste and mix all together. Let cook 15 minutes (helps mellow out the onion and garlic).

Spanish Rice

This is a recipe my mom has been making for years, she got it from a Mexican lady who stayed with us once many, many years ago. Today, I decided to use brown rice, so I also used 1.5 cups of pureed tomatoes from our garden. After the stock/tomato water had evaporated, the rice wasn't fully cooked so I added another cup of water and cooked another 45 minutes or so, stirring every 15-20 minutes so it didn't burn on the bottom. White rice cooks significantly faster, so this isn't an issue with white rice.

- 2 T olive oil
- 1 onion, chopped fine
- 1 garlic clove, minced
- 2 cups med or long grain rice
- 3 cups chicken stock*
- 2 T tomato paste OR 1 cup diced fresh OR cooked tomatoes, strained.
- Pinch oregano
- 1 tsp salt

In large skillet brown rice in olive oil, med/high heat. Add onion and garlic. Cook mixture, stirring frequently about 4 minutes or until onions softened.
In separate sauce pan bring stock to simmer. Add tomato, oregano, and salt. Add rice to broth. Bring to simmer. Cover. Lower heat and cook 15-25 minutes depending on type of rice and instructions on rice package. Turn off heat and let sit 5 minutes.

*Check instructions on rice package for proportions of rice to liquid. Can range from 1:1 to 2:1. If rice calls for 2 cups water for each cup rice, use 4 cups stock for 2 cups rice.

Autumn Spiced Coffee

When I saw Bonnie's recipe for Autumn Spice Latte over on "Going Home to Roost" I knew I would have to try it out this fall. It sounded similar to a pumpkin spice latte.  I've been a little over budget in the coffee department recently and figured it would be a good idea to avoid going to Starbucks again. Since we recently gave up our latte machine (it wasn't seeing any action around here), I made a spin off of the origonal with drip coffee and half and half. And I switched the spice ratio a little, since I don't have whole cloves at the moment. This is really easy to make, took about 7 minutes and it does make the place smell delicious!

In small sauce pan combine 1/2 cup sugar and 1/2 cup water and bring to a boil. Add 1 tsp vanilla and let boil 1 minute, allowing the alcohol to boil off. Turn down to a simmer and add your spices. I used 1/2 tsp cinnamon, 1/4 tsp ground ginger and 1/4 tsp ground cloves. Simmer for about 5 minutes, add to your preferred form of coffee and enjoy!

Culinary Lavender

Culinary lavender seems to be all the rage right now within the foodie community. My first discovery was about a month back. We were up visiting Nelson, BC and one of our favorite restaurants when we had some honey lavender creme brulee that was amazing! Then on a recent trip to Seattle, I had honey lavender ice cream at Molly Moon's which was delicious - lets just say it's a good thing I live four hours from Molly's...

Anyways, while there, I noticed they sold culinary lavender, but ouch, pretty steep price $7.00 for half an ounce. Yesterday, we were running some errands and stopped by the Kitchen Engine, a local kitchen store, I found lavender for $3.00 for half ounce. Yay!

The first thing I made was lavender lemonade! It's my new favorite summer time drink :) Recipe was from Apartment Therapy here. I don't have any awesome pictures but if you need some further inspiration, here's a few from Pinterest that inspired me!

(photo originally from Sunday-supper.com)

(photo originally from designsponge.com)

Bon Appetite

In Nelson, we picked up a copy of Bon Appetite, just like we did last summer! We had fun cooking up some of the recipes for the Friday night home meeting. We decided to "test" at least 3 recipes and if they were as tasty as they looked in the photos to try a subscription for a year. Its finally nice enough to eat outside, so we pulled out the folding table! The top photo is mixed berry cobbler (recipe here).


Joe made some shishkabobs with a chimichurri sauce and marinade from the magazine (recipe here).


Joe also mixed up this Lemon Balm Honeysuckle drink from the website without the alcohol (recipe here). It was really refreshing, and a nice way to use up some of the mint we have running rampant out back.

Greek Pasta Salad

This pasta salad is really easy to make, all you need to know is how to cook noodles and chop veggies! I pulled out the recipe today thinking of Amy's post on what to do with radishes.

- 1 bag pasta, cook according to directions on package
- 1 bottle Girard's Greek Feta Vinaigrette Dressing
- 1 package Crumbled Feta Cheese
- 1 jar pitted Kalamata Olives
- 2 small jars Artichoke Hearts, chopped
- 1 Yellow Pepper, chopped
- 3 Tomatoes, chopped
- 1 Cucumber, chopped
- Bunch of Radishes, sliced into thin pieces

The binder above is how I organize all my recipes. I decided to get rid of the journal, type everything in Google Docs and then print and put it in plastic sleeves. It works better because 1) the pages are easy to wipe down if you spill, 2) if friends want the recipe you can just print it or email it to them, 3) I can access the recipes from anywhere with internet service (that has come in handy many times) and 4) if I find a recipe I like in a magazine, just tear it out and added it, no copying involved :)

Passion Tea Lemonade

Sorry its been so long! This is my all time favorite summer
time drink. It's so easy to make too. Just brew up some Tazo 
Passion tea, then add lemonade mix and ice. So delicious and
refreshing on a hot summer day. Bonus - you skip the S*Bucks
price tag! I'm so glad summer is finally here!

Black Beans & Rice with a Twist

In honor of "Meatless Mondays" I'm going to share a really easy recipe with you. Joe and I end up eating rice and beans about once a week purely due to convenience. It's quick, easy, cheap and fairly healthy too. By the way, I'm not a good cook (Joe wears that hat at our house), so if I can make this, then anyone can.

The usual -
1 can of black beans - we use Trader Joe's Cuban Style black beans
Cooked brown rice
Salsa Fresco - we get the giant tub at Costco, but you could make it by hand or whatever

The twist -
2 ears of corn on the cob - grilled and cut off the cob
Chili Lime sauce: to make whisk together
 - 3 T mayo
 - juice of 1/2 of small lime
 - 1/8 tsp salt
 - 1/4 tsp chili powder
 - dash black pepper

Mix it all together and eat up! Sorry, no pictures, it was gone too quick!

Yummy Cookie Bars

Peach Melba Shortbread Bars adapted from recipe printed in Southern Living magazine. My father-in-law sent this recipe to me. They're pretty tasty! (I still need to make him a batch)

Makes: 1.5 to 2 dozen bars

Hands on time:  20 minutes

Total Time : 2 hr, 20 minutes

Ingredients: 

2 cups all-purpose flour

1/2 cup granulated sugar

1/4 tsp salt

1 cup cold butter

1 cup peach preserves

6 tsp raspberry preserves

1. Preheat over to 350 '. Combine 1st three ingredients in a medium bowl. Cut in butter with a pastry blender until crumbly. Reserve 1 cup flour mixture.

2. Lightly grease an 11 x 7 inch pan. Press remaining flour mixture onto bottom of prepared pan.

3. Bake at 350' for 25 to 30 minutes or until lightly browned.

4. Spread peach preserves over crust in pan. Dollop raspberry preserves by 1/2 teaspoon fulls over peach preserves. Sprinkle reserved 1 cup flour mixture over preserves.

5. Bake at 350' for 35-40 minutes or until golden brown. Let cool 1 hour on wire rack. Cut into bars. Garnish if desired with almonds or powdered sugar. 

Easy Peasy Strawberry Tart

Easy strawberry tart recipe! I made the tart shell the night before, any easy recipe will do, it just needs to be prebaked. If you don't have a tart pan you could use a pyrex or pie dish, etc and just make a very low rim around the base, to mimic the shape of a tart pan. 

Mix the the filling: 8 oz of cream cheese, 1/2 cup of sour cream, 3 tablespoons sugar (more/less depending on how sweet you want the filling), 1 teaspoon vanilla. Spread over the bottom of the tart. Then layer cut strawberries on top or if you're really hungry and can't wait, pile them on top.

Last step, cut yourself a piece and enjoy a little bite of summer!!

P.S. If I can whip this together after work... well after two days of work, it really can't be that hard. 

P.P.S. If the colors are wonky, its because I've been messing around too much in Picasa :)

Happy Friday everyone!

Make Your Own Laundry Soap

After seeing several posts on the blogosphere recently about DIY laundry soap, I decided to give it a whirl for 2 reasons. Namely I'd read that it was much cheaper and second the smell of our current detergent makes me slightly nauseated. The Mrs. Meyers soap recently that I bought smells great but was pretty spendy. As far as the actual process, it wasn't very time consuming and the end product seems to work well.
  
The Ingredients

I used a recipe I found on several different sites.
1 cup borax
1 cup washing soda
2 cups grated soap (~1 bar)
  
There were several different soaps that people had used. The most popular seemed to be Fels-Naptha and Zote. I was unable to find zote at any of my local stores. I found Fels-Naptha at Fred Meyers (in laundry aisle) for $0.99 and at Rosauers for $1.49 (with other bar soaps). The washing soda and borax were on the laundry aisle.
  
The Process

First you grate the soap, I found one bar was equal to approximately 2 cups. Then I added the powders and mixed it in as well as I could. Then I ran it through my food processor in batches (I have a tiny one) until it was a sand like powder. Then give it a test run! The soap has a kind of strong smell but we both like it. Since you only use 2 tablespoons per load, it doesn't come out with a very strong smell. Also it doesn't make a lot of suds.
  
Cost breakdown per load of laundry

5 cents - My Soap. With the more "expenisve" bars it would be 7 cents a load.
12 cents - Ecos Liquid. This is the cheapest "green" soap I found
20 cents - Tide Original Powder soap
22 cents - 7th Generation Liquid soap
25 cents - Mrs. Meyers. Liquid soap
25 cents - Tide Original Liquid soap
28 cents - 7th Generation Powdered soap
30 cents - Method Liquid Soap
** Prices based on largest bottle available (ie cheapest) from Soap.com

Hurry Up Spring

In anticipation of warmer weather, I made one of my favorite summer recipes and a pina colada smoothie today. It just keeps raining here, maybe by Friday we'll have some nice weather! We have one daffodil open now! Woot!! Need to get going on those garden plans...

Couscous Black Bean Salad

2 can black beans, drained and rinsed
1/2 cup olive oil
1/3 cup lemon juice
1/4 cup balsamic vinegar
1 tsp cumin
1 tsp oregano
In a large bowl, marinate beans with the ingredients above.

1 1/2 cup chicken broth
1 cup couscous
Bring broth to a boil, add couscous, cover and let sit 5 minutes. Add couscous to bean mixture.

2 bell peppers, chopped
1 bunch fresh cilantro, finely chopped
1 bunch green onions, chopped
Add to above.

Salt & Pepper to taste
1/2 bottle Greek vinaigrette w/ feta
Stir into the salad.

Cheese Danish

Cheese danish are so yummy! Thank goodness for frozen puff pastries, otherwise these would be a lot of work. Recipe found in Barefoot Contessa at Home cookbook or online here.

If you don't like scrapbooking ignore the following...

I'm always trying to figure out new ways to use up thickers, especially the numbers, its really frustrating throwing away perfectly good stuff that you spent perfectly good money on. Anways, the foam numbers bend really easily to make interesting shapes. I cut a bunch of 9s and 6s up and used the 3s sideways, all stretched out. 

Great Day Off

Today ended up being a great day off... which I was not expecting since I spent all day yesterday in bed asleep fighting a head cold. I've been stressing recently that I forgot to renew my tabs on time, but today Joe found them in a stack of unsorted papers, so that saved me a trip to the DMV! Yay!! I went to BodyFlow this evening, part yoga, tai-chi and pilates. And I realized I can touch my toes without having to stretch for 15 minutes, which means this whole going to the gym thing is working. (Seeing as I used to have trouble touching my knees in the morning). Also had an impromptu visit with some friends which cheered me up. Made a quick stop at  Huckleberry's and picked up so goat yogurt which I'm really excited to try, some half and half in the cutest little milk bottle and some yummy juices! This evening, I made a new recipe in an effort to save some produce from the compost pile, and in a desperate attempt to avoid eating VA cafeteria food for lunch  tomorrow.

Lentil and Couscous Salad (adapted from a Country Living Recipe)
Whisk together
- 6 Tablespoons of apple cider vinegar
- 4 Tablespoons of whole grain mustard
- 1/4 cup olive oil
- 1/4 tsp black pepper
Then cook, drain and add french lentils (1 cup uncooked), and couscous (1 cup uncooked).
Chop up a bunch of green onions and some cherry tomatoes. Mix together and you're done.
(P.s. the original recipe calls for 3/4 cup chopped mint but it tastes great w/o it)

Overall, it seems fairly healthy, it has lentils, that has to up the good-for-you factor right? and if I can whip it up the night before work that proves its not to difficult or time intensive either.