Quesadillas and a Cilantro Lime Vinaigrette

I made an incredibly simple meal I adapted from the Eating Well July 2010 issue and a recipe from EW's online recipes. Bean and cheese quesadillas with a simple green salad with cilantro-lime vinaigretteSurprisingly, my carnivorous husband and sons pronounced this the "Best Meatless Monday meal, ever. Can we make it again?" They made second helpings and drizzled the salad dressing over the quesadillas as well. Lesson learned: simple and familiar is much better received than complex and "weird". Next time I think I will use dried beans and stash extra in the fridge. The mix would be easy to keep on hand for quick lunches and suppers.

I think these quesadillas would be great on the grill. Also, the vinaigrette (which will have permanent status in my fridge since it is so easy to make) would be very good drizzled over fish.


Pinto Bean Quesadillas
Serves 4
1 14-oz can pinto beans, rinsed, and smashed with a potato masher. Don't completely obliviate them. You want the texture.
1/4 teaspoon cumin
1/2 Cup shredded Pepper Jack cheese
1/2 Cup prepared fresh salsa, divided
4 8-inch whole wheat tortillas
2 teaspoons canola oil, divided
1 ripe avocado diced

Combine beans, cheese, and 1/4 Cup of salsa in a bowl. Spread 1/2 cup of bean mix over healf of each tortilla. Fold tortilla over mixture and press a bit to flatten.

Heat on teaspoon oil in large nonstick skillet over med-hi heat. Add 2 quesadillas and cook on each side for 2-4 minutes or until heated through. Repeat with remaining quesadillas.

Serve topped with avocado and remaining salsa.


Cilantro-Lime Dressing
makes 1 1/4 Cups total

1 Cup packed cilantro (I just use one bunch)
1/2 cup extra virgin olive oil
1/4 cup lime juice
1 teaspoon lime zest
1/4 Cup orange juice
zest from one orange
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon pepper
1 small clove of garlic, minced or pressed

Puree everything in a blender until smooth.

Quinoa and Black Beans - All Recipes

I recently bought several pounds of quinoa at a local store that sells damaged and close-to-date items. So, I've been looking around for yummy recipes to use it up. Here's one we tried last week and everyone loved it! I served it with tortilla chips to make it more kid-friendly and had salsa, sour cream and guac on the side.

http://allrecipes.com/Recipe/Quinoa-and-Black-Beans/Detail.aspx

• 1 teaspoon vegetable oil
• 1 onion, chopped
• 3 cloves garlic, peeled and chopped
• 3/4 cup uncooked quinoa
• 1 1/2 cups vegetable broth
• 1 teaspoon ground cumin
• 1/4 teaspoon cayenne pepper
• salt and pepper to taste
• 1 cup frozen corn kernels
• 2 (15 ounce) cans black beans, rinsed and drained
• 1/2 cup chopped fresh cilantro

Directions

1. Heat the oil in a medium saucepan over medium heat. Stir in the onion and garlic, and saute until lightly browned.
2. Mix quinoa into the saucepan and cover with vegetable broth. Season with cumin, cayenne pepper, salt, and pepper. Bring the mixture to a boil. Cover, reduce heat, and simmer 20 minutes,
3. Stir frozen corn into the saucepan, and continue to simmer about 5 minutes until heated through. Mix in the black beans and cilantro.

Skillet gnocchi with Chard & White Beans

This has been the favorite recipe on the www.eatingwell.com site for weeks. We tried it this past week and gave it two thumbs up. My notes: be sure to use petite diced tomatoes (I used regular and added my own spices) and cut the chard into small pieces. This would easily be adapted to different flavors such as chickpeas, spinach, oregano and feta, or white beans with havarti and dill. I'm keeping the shelf-stable gnocchi stocked in my pantry from now on.

Skillet Gnocchi with Chard & White Beans
from Eating Well Magazine Jan/Feb 2009

Eating well suggests serving it with a mixed green salad with vinaigrette.

Ingredients:
1 Tablespoon plus 1 teaspoon extra virgin olive oil
1 16-oz pkg shelf-stable gnocchi
1 medium yellow onion, thinly sliced
4 garlic cloves, minced
1/2 cup water
6 cups chopped chard leaves
1 15-oz can diced tomatoes with Italian seasonings
1 15-oz can white beans, rinsed
1/4 teaspoon freshly ground pepper
1/2 cup shredded part-skim mozzarella cheese
1/4 Cup finely shredded Parmesan cheese

Heat 1 Tablespoon oil in large nonstick skillet over medium heat. Add gnocchi and cook, stirring often, until plumped and starting to brown, 5 to 7 minutes. Transfer gnocchi to a bowl.

Add the remaining 1 teaspoon oil and onion to the pan and cook, stirring over medium heat for 2 minutes. Stir in garlic and water. Cover and cook, until onion is soft, 4 to 6 minutes. Add chard and cook, stirring, until starting to wilt 1 to 2 minutes. Stir in tomatoes, beans and peppers and bring to a simmer. Stir int he gnocchi and sprinkle with mozzarella and Parmesan. Cover and cook until the cheese is melted and the sauce is bubbling, about three minutes.

325 Cal; 7 g fat; 2 g Sat; 3 g mono; 8 mg chol; 55 g Carb; 14 g Protein; 6 g Fiber; 616 mg Sodium; 360 mg Potassium

Tacos Sans the Meat

My cousin gave me this idea. I love it.

You substitute the meat for black beans mixed with Taco Seasoning.

You will still have your shells or tortillas, cheese tomatoes, olives, lettuce, etc.

I add broccoli sprouts. They are delicious and taste great, better than lettuce.

Simple, tasty, and much easier to store than meat (both the bag and the can).

Give it a try and let me us know what you think.

Families are Forever, but beans are not.

Another reason I got interested in vegetarian cooking is its relation to food storage.  You can't dry-pack meat.  And I found, once I was baking with whole grains, that I was halfway completing a protein vegetarian-style anyway.

The other half would be a vegetable, or beans.  Beans were what I had in storage.  There was a time during my husband starting his business, that I was cooking from my food storage more than adding to it.

And that's when I found out beans aren't forever.   I had bought black beans--my favorite--at the grocery store, in those one-pound packages, before we'd moved to that house.  But in my years of extravagant living in that house, I'd been using pre-cooked beans from a can.  The dried beans I'd had at least two years, but certainly less than five.  I soaked them overnight, cooked them the next day, and those dried beans didn't soften a bit.  I think I ended up raiding my limited supply of canned soup for dinner that night.  Don't like the kids to go hungry, you know.

Next I experimented.  Soaked for 24 hours.  Started cooking them early in the morning.  They simmered until I went to bed, still hard as rocks.   Marbles.  Diamonds.  I gave up.

It's not like I didn't know how to cook beans.  I didn't put salt in the water or anything like that.  Before children when I had been actually vegetarian, I had been soaking and cooking a pot of beans successfully every week.

I threw the rest out and got new dried beans.  The new beans cooked fine.

Rotate your beans, people.  They're great in food storage, eat them a couple times a month.  Make bean-bags, toy dolls, or art projects out of the old beans if you can't throw them out.  If you have a lot of old beans, I suppose they might make good ground cover for a garden path.

Just don't try and eat them.

Can I get a witness? Miss Vickie agrees with me.