When the Black Beans Attack

Saturday was a great day to cook some black beans. They had been soaking all night, so when I got up I put them into the pot, took Harper outside, and sat down to check my email.

Two hours later I came upstairs to find a boiled over mess.

It is hard to see, but there were purple streaks staining the counter, streaks of yellow and blue all over the stove (how did those colors separate??) and black liquid running down the oven and pooled on the floor.

Black Bean Nachos (or Salad)

With a bowl of this in my lap I am instantly taken back to childhood where I am sitting on the blue chair with a cup full of hot salsa, melted cheese swirled throughout. One delicious chip after another pass my lips as I ponder all the blessings in my life.

I am older, sadly, my food has gotten healthier, and the blessings seem to be multiplying every day. I am such a lucky girl.

Black beans are by far my favorite bean. oh, sure....all beans taste pretty much the same. Why are black beans the best? They just are. The hint of lime juice in this recipe makes all the difference in the world. For a brief time I thought I lost the recipe, but after months of searching through library books I found it and now I still have no clue where it came from. I will say it is manna from heaven.

This nacho recipe originally calls for a layer of chips, then beans/corn/salsa, then spinach, then cheese, and all of it is baked together. But I don't like the chips baked with topping because they get soggy. Life is just too dang short to eat soggy chips. So I heat the topping mixture together and dip the chips into the hot bean dip. And leave out the spinach. Nobody wants a bite of hay when they are expecting something yummy. Sometimes I leave out the cheese, too. It is good either way, but it may not classify as nachos if there is no cheese. Does anybody have a good recipe title for the cheese free version??

Black Bean Salsa

1/2 onion, chopped and sauteed until soft

1 T oil

1 C canned crushed tomatoes

1 1/2 C frozen corn

1 can black beans (or 1 1/2 C cooked black beans)

2 T lime juice

1 T chili powder

1 t oregano

8 oz. shredded cheese

1 box (10 oz) spinach, thawed and patted dry (optional)

2 C salsa

Saute the onion in the oil for around 8 minutes until soft. Add the tomatoes, salsa, corn, beans lime juice, chili powder, and oregano. Cook for 5 minutes until heated. Put black beans on bottom of a casserole dish, then the spinach, then the cheese. Back at 350 degrees for 20-25 minutes until the cheese is melted. Serve with chips, or as the dressing for a salad.

Crunch Wrap Supreme

There is no doubt that the one fast food item far superior to all others is the Crunch Wrap Supreme at Taco Bell. I happened to run across a recipe at Hungry Girl for a version to make at home, and I jumped for joy. Then I ran into the kitchen and fired up the burner.

Do you want to know the best thing about this picture? It shows the pretty half. The other side didn't fare so well, but what the heck....I ate it just the same.


This is remarkably easy to make. Hungry Girl uses soy crumbles but even using that word makes my stomach turn. I eat meat.

Crunch Wrap Supreme at Home
1 large tortilla
3 corn chips
1/3 C ground beef, cooked and crumbled
1/3 C refried beans
1/4 C shredded cheese
1/4 C shredded lettuce
1/3 tomato, diced
1 T sour cream
1/2 t taco seasoning

Combine the cooked ground beef and taco seasoning. Spritz the skillet with oil and place the tortilla on it. Spread a layer of r fried beans, then sprinkle on the ground beef. Put the cheese on top of the beef. Next comes the corn chips. Putting them next to the cheese helps them stay crispy. Then layer the sour cream, lettuce, and tomatoes.

Leave 2 inches of tortilla around the entire edge. When everything is hot, fold the bottom edge of the tortilla up. Then fold overlapping sections all the way around. Flip so the folded side is down and heat for 3-4 minutes on each side to brown the outside of the tortilla.

White Chicken Chili

We've got beans. Bunches and bunches of them. Right before Christmas we ran out of beans in the freezer. We usually cook up a couple of pounds and freeze them in sandwich sized bags. I went downstairs to the food storage closet and *GASP* there were no more black beans. How could this be? Immediately I called Amanda, my sister-in-law, and told her that I absolutely needed some beans. Would she pick them up from the bean mill for me? I wasn't playing games - I needed 50 pounds of white beans, 50 pounds of red beans, and 100 pounds of black beans. Now we have our year's supply of beans, and now we are in dire need of some recipes to actually use them.

As it turns out, the black beans weren't ready so we still don't have them. It makes me tear up a little. *sniff*

I have been wanting to try a white chicken chili for awhile. We were both leery of it because chili just isn't chili if it doesn't have any chili powder. Alas, we had to leave our preconceived notions behind and take a leap of faith in our bean-using adventure.

This is a simple recipe. Basically, you throw all the spices together, let it simmer, and then throw in the beans and chicken. One bite and we realized that it is really very good. Really really. The cumin, which I usually don't like, gives it a familiar chili flavor, and it is very filling.

Here is the original recipe.

White Chicken Chili

1 small handful food storage onions, or 1 small onion
1 can chopped green chili peppers
2 teaspoons ground cumin
1 teaspoon dried oregano
1 teaspoon ground cayenne pepper
3 cups chicken broth

2 cooked chicken breasts
3-4 cups cooked white beans (or 3 cans)
1/3 cup shredded white cheese (I used mozzarella)

1/8 cup parmesan cheese

Bring a pot of water to a boil and throw in the frozen chicken breasts. You do not need to thaw them first. Let them boil for a few minutes, until they are white all the way through. Then chop them into bite sized cubes.

If you are using a fresh onion, saute it in a little oil. Otherwise, put the food storage onions, green chilies, cumin, oregano, cayenne pepper and chicken broth in a soup pot and let it boil a few minutes. Throw in the beans, chicken, and cheese and stir it up. Heat everything thoroughly then take it off the burner. Alternately, you can add cheese to just your own bowl.

Black Bean and Steak Chili

The snow calls for something warm and hearty. A big pot of chili and some mini cornbread muffins are just the ticket to satisfaction through the storm.

At our house we have a strange problem. Two years ago we started buying our beef from a rancher in Iowa, who will sell us 1/4 a beef at a time. He butchers and then splits all the cuts into 4 sections so everyone gets the same amount of each cut. It takes us a solid year to eat it. This year we got it in May and the hamburger is almost gone - but the freezer is overflowing with steak and roasts. What to do, what to do? We had better start eating more steak.

Clarinda, Kevin's friend who introduced him to the church, made steak chili for him once, and he decided to make it for us so. Just so you don't get the wrong idea, Clarinda is my friend, too. And why wouldn't she be? She is wonderful. And if she hadn't been Kevin's friend, Kevin and I may have never left. Yes, we owe a lot to the lovely Clarinda. But she was Kevin's friend before I even knew her, so she is listed as "Kevin's Friend."



Here is the whole pot before it simmers down. It thickens and darkens as it simmers.

Isn't this little cornbread muffin the cutest thing you've ever seen? I will refrain from giving you the recipe because, quite frankly, it was a new recipe and not a big hit. We wanted to try a recipe that had pieces of whole corn in it, and this one turned out to be mostly corn and only a little bit of cornbread. Bluuck.

Grill the steak and cut it into very, very small pieces. You don't want to get a bite of nothing but steak. Kevin calls it 'nibble size.'

Black Bean and Steak Chili
2 - 6 ounce steaks, grilled and diced

2 sandwich bags of frozen roasted tomato puree - or 2 cans of tomatoes, 1 chopped red or green pepper, and 1 chopped onion

2 cans black beans, or 3 cups cooked black beans

2 T chili powder

1 T paprika

1 t salt

dash cayenne

Add tomatoes, pepper and onions to large pot and simmer until tender. Then add everything except the beans. If you are using the roasted tomato puree, add everything except beans to the pot. Let it simmer for 30 minutes on medium heat. Add beans and continue to simmer long enough to heat them thoroughly. Add water to desired thickness.

Bean and Ham and Bean Soup

A ham bone had been sitting in the fridge for a few days, and I had promised that I would use it, and demanded that I absolutely did not want it thrown out. So I finally decided that I would have to make good on my promise and make some soup. It was about 9 PM when I started.

Drat! We were out of white beans. Oh, wait! There was one bag hiding at the bottom of the bean pile in the freezer. It was 2 pounds, and the recipe I had called for just 1 pound, but I used the whole thing anyways. After all, soup is very tolerant to tweaking.

Then I brought the beans to a boil, rinsed them off, and threw everything into a crock pot. At noon the next day Kevin emailed, "This has got to be the best Bean and Ham soup I have ever had. Got to go get more... Bye!" I smiled when I read it. He's the best. And he was right - it was "bean and ham" and not "ham and bean." There were a whole lot more beans than ham. It's healthier that way.

If you have a bunch of friends, it would be great to invite them over for this. The soup is good and all, but ham and bean soup just isn't something you eat as leftovers for days on end. Or, if you ARE the kind of person to do that, nobody else probably wants to be around you much. And they probably call you "Stinky Stinker" behind your back.

Ham and Bean Soup in the Crock Pot
8 C water
1-2 pounds white beans, sorted and rinsed
1 T lemon juice
1 T honey - optional
1 bay leaf
1 handful of food storage onions (or 1 onion chopped)
1 ham bone with a bit of meat on it
1-2 C chopped cooked ham

Rinse and sort the beans, then throw them in a pot with a teaspoon of baking soda. Bring it to a boil, then rinse the beans. Then rinse them again. Get 'em good and extra rinsed. Then add everything to the crock pot and let it cook on low either overnight or all day, up to 12 hours. Remove the bay leaf before serving.