Bean and Couscous Salad, and the Friends Who Inspired It

Summer is almost over! It's almost time to go back to school! I am so nervous/excited! This back to school season feels totally different than the rest. I am going to go through a huge change! A new house, new housemates, new school, new subject of study, new degree. Everything is new! All of my friends seem to be starting something new in September whether it be grad school, a new job, or traveling. Last weekend, a few of my friends from Waterloo got together and had a nice dinner which was perfect timing as the summer is coming to an end and before we get super busy in September.

I'm going to give you a quick rundown on these friends becuase I feel it is important in choosing the dish that I brought. Maybe not that important, but it will give this story a little something extra. There is William, a fellow lover of food, especially if cookies and chocolate are involved. He also loves to cook and try new recipes, particularly if it is French. He will turn the most simple dish sound like a French masterpiece. Then there is Max, the one who really convinced me to finally start this blog. He is always up for trying something new in the kitchen. Then we have Andrew, the token carnivore. Everyone has a carnivorous friend right? Clearly I'm exaggerating but not as much as you'd hope. Last but not least we have Miles. Oh Miles, how one can exist on cereal and pizza we will never understand. I like to tease him about his lack of vegetables because he literally defies all odds. This guy never gets sick while only getting his veggies from the top of a pizza! He has an immune system to die for! But I digress; why am I telling you all of this? Because making a dish to bring to a dinner with these friends has to A) impress the food critic that is William, B) have veggies becuase clearly I won't get to eat any otherwise, and C) make those veggies taste great so the carnivores will get their vitamin C for the year (I joke).

Bean and Couscous Salad

1-2 tbsp olive oil
2 cloves garlic
1 cm piece of chili pepper
1/4 tsp cumin
1 medium carrot, chopped
1/2 cup chopped onion
1 can red kidney beans
3 cups cooked couscous
1 small purple pepper (any colour really), chopped
1/2 large green pepper, chopped
1 large tomato, chopped
2 celery stalks, chopped
1/2 cup chopped cucumber

Dressing: from allrecipes.com

1/4 cup fresh lime juice
3 tbsp olive oil
2.5 tsp chili powder
2.5 tsp cumin
1 tsp pepper
1/2 tsp salt

Add olive oil, garlic, and chili pepper to a pan and heat on medium-high. Heat for a few minutes until fragrant.

Add carrot, onion, and cumin and saute until onions are translucent and carrots are softer (but not fully cooked).

Transfer to a bowl and allow to cool. In a large bowl, combine beans, couscous, onion mixture, peppers, tomato, cucumber, and celery and mix to combine.

Combine ingredients for the dressing in a closed container and shake to mix well. If you have the time, allow dressing to refrigerate for a couple hours to allow the flavours to come together. I did not quite use all of this dressing for this salad. How much you want to use is really up to you. It is also good to add the dressing and refrigerate a few hours before serving.

As far as I could tell, the salad was a hit. Straight from Miles' mouth: "It tastes like tacos!"

Mission: Accomplished.

I move into my new house tomorrow and am in the middle of packing. I am not sure when the internet will be up and running but I hope to be posting from my new kitchen soon!

Eggs in a Pepper

After making the Quinoa-Stuffed Peppers a while back I thought about other food to stuff peppers with. We have a lot of green pepper from our garden so I thought I would experiment. I wanted to have an omelette one day, but I wanted to have that omelette in the pepper. I wasn't exactly sure how it would turn out, but it was worth a try.

Eggs in a Pepper

1 small or medium bell pepper
1 egg
veggies of your choice

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F. Remove the stem, seeds, and inner flesh of the pepper. Beat the egg with some veggies (avocado and tomato and my case) and poured the mixture into the pepper. Depending on how big your pepper is, depends on how much egg and veggies you can add. Bake for 30 to 45 minutes, until egg is cooked and pepper is soft.

I cut the pepper in half, added some ground black pepper, and rather enjoyed it! When choosing veggies, avoid ones that contain a lot of water. I know from experience that frozen spinach (even once drained) does not work too well. It makes the eggs very watery which extends the cooking time if you want to have a nice firm egg. I also recommend using smaller peppers, just enough to fit one egg and desired veggies, as the cooking time could extend to almost an hour with a larger pepper with more stuffing. As you can see, the egg tends to overflow during cooking but that is okay.

I think this could make a potentially fantastic (and very cute) appetizer. I have seen some mini bell peppers around, and as long as you could scrounge for ones that would stand upright, it would work well. Since they are so small, I could see a variety herbs, spices and finely chopped veggies, being added to the mixture. How dainty they would be.

I hope everyone is enjoying the long weekend, I know I have been. Even with all this free time I am behind in my postings and have a line-up of new dishes to post about. Tomorrow I hope to write about a Mexican inspired meal I made with my friend Will which includes an amazing new guacamole recipe and homemade whole-wheat tortilla chips.

Rice Paper Black Bean Burrito Failure

I thought of something that I thought would be revolutionary on the weekend and tried it out on Monday night. Like I have said before, I like Mexican food, including burritos. While tasty and can be healthy when packed with lots of veggies, the tortilla can ruin it. The ones you can buy in the grocery stores are not very tasty and are never as good as the one's in the restaurants.

To find a lower carbohydrate option I thought of rice paper. Ideally it would still hold all the contents together and could be baked. In case you missed the title of this post, this idea was a fail. This was a fail because not only had I never made burritos, I had never worked with rice paper, and therefore, had never used rice paper to make burritos. I will go through how I went about this and discuss some possible reasons for the failure.

I will admit that I was in a bit of a rush when making these. I made the filling using a similar recipe to the Black Bean Tomato Sauce I have made in the past.

Black Bean Burrito Filling

1 tbsp olive oil
2.5 cups cooked black beans
1/2 large onion
2 bell peppers
3 cups diced tomatoes
1/4 jalepeno (this was being timid)
1/2 can tomato paste
chili powder to taste
salt and pepper to taste

I highly recommend chopping the veggies up very finely, and slightly smashing up the beans. I didn't do this, but I think this gives it a better texture for a burrito filling.

I heated the olive oil on medium-high. The onions were sauteed for 3-5 minutes and then I added the peppers. After 5 minutes I added the beans, tomatoes, jalapeno, tomato paste and some chili powder. I made sure it was stirred well and allowed it to simmer on medium-low for about 10 minutes before tasting it for spice. From here you can add as much chili powder as you like. Then allow the mixture to simmer until the desired thickness is reached. You do not want much liquid left. You could even reduce the amount of tomatoes and add other veggies instead, be creative!

Like I said, these chunks are just too big (that is what happens when you are in a rush).

Another reason to make burritos is to have another reason to make and eat guacamole (as if I need another reason). I had half an avocado so I whipped up a 2 serving portion of guacamole.

Guacamole

1/2 large avocado chopped
1 garlic clove
1/4 cup diced onion
~1 tbsp lemon juice

Mash it all together or leave it chunky, its up to you!

Now I had the two stars of the burrito show. It was time to attempt to wrap them up in rice paper. To use rice paper, you soak it in warm water for about 5 seconds. I scooped 1/2 cup of the burrito mixture, 1/2 the guacamole and 1 tbsp cottage cheese into the center of the paper. I then folded each side up to form a sac. It held farely well together.

Unfolded rice paper (no guacamole in this one, how unfortunate):

After wrapping, before baking:

I should have saved some sauce to put on top but I forgot :( . I then baked the sacs (I refuse to call them burritos at this point), for 10 minutes at 400 F. The rice paper stiffened a bit and stuck to any rice paper that was close to it, resulting in a big mess! My make-shift burrito project was a fail.

I am wondering if little mini burritos would have been better and then not bake them after wrapping. The rice paper wasn't designed to be eaten with a knife and a fork so making them smaller, to eat with one's hands, may have been a better approach.

Does anyone have any creative burrito-like ideas?

I just though of one now! Burrito potato skins! The skin of the potato is the best part anyway! Into a hollowed out potato, add the burrito filling plus any other toppings (guac and cheese obvi) and bake to melt it all together. I think this would be fabulous; a much healthier alternative to tortillas and a more successful alternative to rice paper.

Now what am I going to do with all this rice paper?!?

Salad Two Ways

Salads are a big part of my daily life. I usually have one, sometimes two. So easy to make, and when made properly can be a balanced healthy meal. Today I had two salads; two very different salads.

The first I had for lunch and mostly contained some fresh baby leaf and head lettuce from our backyard garden. We have so much lettuce sprouting right now. Most of it isn't mature, but can still be used in it's infant stage. I also picked a baby radish. They aren't very big yet but this little guy was mostly out of the soil so I thought I would just pick it. Chives (right) and sorrel (left) also came from the backyard herb garden.

Green Garden Salad:

fresh lettuce
2 chives, chopped
1 baby raddish
1/4 avocado, chopped
5 leaves sorrel, chopped
1 carrot, shredded
1/2 tsp olive oil
balsamic vinegar and salt and pepper to taste

I tossed this salad and sprinkled a bit of nutritional yeast on top. I am really liking this stuff as a topper to dishes.

For dinner I had planned on eating a can of tuna, but wanted to do something different then just eat it straight from the can (my normal fare). I finely chopped up some veggies, tossed in some lemon juice, seasoned, and served in radicchio leaf boats.

Zesty Tuna Salad

1/2 can flaked tuna
1/4 orange bell pepper, chopped
3 tbsp chopped onion
1/4 avocado, chopped
1 piece celery, chopped
6 hot pepper rings (the jarred ones), chopped
dill to taste
1-2 tbsp fresh lemon juice (to taste)
3-4 radicchio leaves

After mixing all the salad ingredients together I let this marinate in the fridge for a couple of hours. I only did this because I had to go out, but I imagine it did the salad good. I then scooped the salad into the radicchio leaves. It makes it easier to eat if you sort of wrap them up and eat them like little tacos.

My day (or should I say evening) was also filled with baking. I managed to finish two batches, and both were a success. I will post about these delicious treats tomorrow.

Happy Chopping