Posts tagged #beans

Lekker: Vegan Sweet Potato & Black Bean Chili

Hello there, and Happy Thanksgiving pals!

As a foodie I'm sure you can imagine that this is very nearly my favourite holiday of the year. Christmas is my actual favourite, but only because it's LONGER.

Because Thanksgiving is just one day I feel like it never really gets its proper due, so when I "grow up" one day I plan to host Thanksgiving dinners at least twice a year. It's such a great excuse to get together with friends and family for quality time, and besides, there's just too many cool recipes I want to try. Once per year is not cutting it. Bollocks.

(That plan hinges on the obviously faulty logic that I will, in fact, one day grow up--but nevermind.) 

Surprising no one I've been planning my Thanksgiving menu since sometime in September, and I ultimately decided that sweet potatoes were axed from this year's menu. Since it's just my Dad, my 20-year-old body building brother Champ and I for dinner this year it's quite the small party, and thus I had to be painfully limited with my side dishes.

Champ threw a hissy fit when he found out I wasn't doing sweet potatoes because OF COURSE he doesn't care about anything, ever, but the **second** I say no to something it's immediately the most important thing ever--but I'M IN CHARGE HERE DAMMIT!

However in light of the "family togetherness" of the holidays etc etc etc I yielded somewhat to the sweet-potato-based pressure by cooking up this vegan sweet potato and black bean chili for dinner.

None of us are vegans here but it's so lean, filling, and chock full of wholesome things, it'll make you feel better about yourself before you dive in face first to the gluttony and gravy-induced stupor that is Thanksgiving the following day.

Chili never looks particularly appetizing, but damn if it isn't delicious.

And yes, my father promptly ruined the "vegan" aspect by topping it with a mountain of shredded cheddar cheese.

VEGAN SWEET POTATO BLACK BEAN CHILI
serves 4

WHAT YOU NEED

  • 1 very large, 2 medium, or 3 smallish sweet potatoes, peeled and diced small
  • 1 teaspoon paprika
  • 1/2 teaspoon salt
  • Freshly ground pepper
  • 2 tablespoons olive oil, divided
  • 1 red or green bell pepper, diced
  • 1 medium onion, diced
  • 4 cloves garlic, diced
  • 1 green jalapeno, seeds removed and flesh diced
  • 1 teaspoon ground cumin
  • 1/2 teaspoon oregano
  • 3 1/2 cups cooked black beans (or 2 15-oz tins; see my note below if you want to cook them from scratch)
  • 4 teaspoons adobo sauce from a tin of chipotle peppers in adobo sauce (if you like your chili more on the spicy side, feel free to add in one of the chipotle peppers, chopped)
  • 1 28-oz tin diced tomatoes with their juice
  • 1 teaspoon white granulated sugar
  • 1 teaspoon unsweetened cocoa powder
  • 1 cup water or vegetable broth, to thin it out

Optional, To Screw Up The Whole Vegan Thing: Sour cream or shredded cheese, to serve


***On black beans from scratch:***

My Mother, God rest her soul, was born and raised in Guatemala on the traditional staple diet of black beans and rice. Do you think they use tinned beans down there? LOL, no. That's an American convenience, and it is convenient--but cooking your own is stupidly easy and SO worth it.

As the beans cook they release starch and flavouring into the cooking water, yielding this black salty broth that acted as my liquid in the chili recipe, and tastes AMAZING. Like I could sip that from a mug all day in bliss. These are the beans I remember from my childhood, and if you did a taste test of beans from scratch next to tinned beans, I absolutely guarantee without a doubt that the beans from scratch will come out on top, every time.

For God's sake, just make sure that they are fresh beans. The first time I made this recipe I used a batch of beans I dug up from the back of my Dad's pantry that I later found out were AT LEAST six goddamn years old. Turns out the older the beans are, the longer it takes to cook--which in this case was SIX HOURS PLUS AN OVERNIGHT SOAKING. It felt like forever. I felt like I was stuck in some kind of parallel universe where nothing cooked.

That's it for my rant on beans for now, but I'm planning on writing a recipe for cooking your own--and more importantly, why you should definitely, positively, should be putting them in and around your mouth.


WHAT YOU DO

1. Preheat your oven to 400 degrees F and line a baking sheet with foil. On it, toss together your diced sweet potatoes, paprika, salt and pepper to taste with only 1 tablespoon of the olive oil and spread out into a thin layer. Roast for 25 minutes, tossing once in between. Remove from the oven and set...somewhere. Aside. Out of your way.

Roasted sweet potato is the best sweet potato and there will be no debate on that fact.

2. In a large pot over medium heat, heat your olive oil and sauté up your onion, bell pepper, garlic, jalapeño, cumin, and oregano until everything is nice and soft. Add in the black beans, the tin of tomatoes, adobo sauce, sugar, and cocoa powder. Stir.

(Note: at this point, I added 1 cup of the black bean broth because the chili was too thick to simmer properly. If you opted for tinned beans, add in a cup of water or vegetable broth here.)

3. Bring the mixture to a simmer, then reduce heat to low and let it simmer merrily away for about 30 minutes, stirring occasionally. Then add in your sweet potato. Simmer for another 15 minutes-ish or until all heated through nicely.

Dunzo!

There are zillions of chili toppings, of course, but in my house we dig shredded cheddar cheese and saltine crackers. Cheese is obviously not vegan, but there are vegan cheese options so if you're into it, by all means, have at it.

Lekker: Slow Cooker Red Beans & Rice

So with all my salads and lean soups I've been having here lately I began craving some protein, especially since I'm back to my regular workouts at the gym and gotta feed those muscles! (Hah. Hah.) Beans are awesome because when combined with brown rice they're a great complete source of protein (although this recipe amps things up by adding sausage, because yum) and they're inexpensive and easy to prepare. Plus, I was feeling hella lazy and wanted to put my slow cooker to work overnight so I would have a yummy meal ready to take to work and share with a hard-pressed coworker. Wins, all around!

With this much protein and fiber to fill you up in one bowl, you don't need much to be satisfied--perfect for sticking to that New Year's diet and still indulge in some bangin' comfort food.

Slow Cooker Red Beans & Rice

What You Need
1 1/2 pounds smoked pork sausage, preferably andouille (don't be a lazy ass, just look at the packages there, I'm sure you'll find some; just make sure it's smoked and not raw)
1 green bell pepper, diced
1 medium onion, diced
4 celery stalks, diced (we're going for equal proportions here, see?)
3 cloves garlic, minced
2 T Creole seasoning (Tony Chachere's rules the roost in my house)
1 pound dry red beans, picked over for debris and rinsed in a strainer
6 cups low sodium chicken broth (sausage has enough salt guys)
2 bay leaves
Hot cooked BROWN OR MIXED WILD rice, to serve (Quit it with that flavourless white shit, it's boring and bad for you and brown rice has way more flavour and fiber. These days there are zillions of "cooks in 90 seconds" microwavable bags to choose from.)

This is so easy it's stupid.

What You Do
1. Slice the sausages lengthways down the middle, then crossways into little half-moons. Fry in just a touch of oil over medium heat in a large skillet until well browned, then scoop aside onto a paper towel lined plate to drain. In the residual sausage drippings, fry up the bell pepper, onions, celery and garlic until just lightly soft and golden.
2. Throw everything into the slow cooker, stir, and cook on high for 6 hours or on low for 8. Good luck swallowing all the saliva you'll be drowning in as your kitchen smells better and better and better. Don't worry about the liquid content until the very end. If it's too watery for you, just crush up some of the beans with a potato masher to act as a thickener. Voila! Serve over hot cooked rice.

Lekker: Andouille & Kale White Bean Stew

Thank god for this recipe. Seriously, I've been absent for awhile solely because I've just had one dud recipe after another. I wouldn't share anything here I'm not TOTALLY crazy about and can't wait to make again and lately it's all just been bleh, bleh, blah. Meat & Potato Pies that were good, but just too much damn work (3+ hours for six tiny little pies? GTFO); Chocolatey Peanut Butter Banana Bread (which was less like bread and more like cake and boring in either case); Roasted Garlic, Leek & Pumpkin Soup that sounds good in theory but turned out to be way too garlicky and way too spicy (will be tinkering with that recipe though) and a number of other nonsense failures.I needed a win.

Enter this deliciousness!

I'm sort of stretching this by calling it a "stew" because there is SOME broth, but it's so hearty and filling I don't think it deserves the "soup" classification. For most people, I think, "soup" is something that requires a Part 2 of the meal--a salad, or a sandwich, etc--to make it a full meal. Yesterday I had only a big bowl of French onion soup for lunch and I was a royal cranky bitch for the rest of the afternoon because I was starving. This is chock full of protein with just the right amount of veggies and delicious, salty, flavourful broth. I can't imagine anyone who wouldn't like this--except my Bonus Dad, who does not like kale, and my Bonus Mom, who does not eat sausage. Sigh. Sorry guys--can't please everyone, all the time! :-}

This takes about 35-40 minutes to prepare from start to finish. Serve with a thick wedge of garlic bread and a sprinkling of Parmesan cheese on top and you'll want nothing more out of life.

 I took a picture of it still in the pot because I knew that if I got it into a bowl, I would be wanting to get it into my mouth much more than wanting to take some snaps--and I was right.

Andouille & Kale White Bean Stew
makes about 6 servings

What You Need
6 ounces Andouille sausage (I used one link of this one by Johnsonville)
2 medium shallots (If you don't know, shallots are like onions but stronger and more pungent in taste; they have the same reddish papery skin but are smaller and oblong instead of round, and purple and white in color instead of white or yellow; typically you can find them next to the garlic in your shop)
2 small or 1 large celery rib
2 medium carrots, peeled
2 cloves garlic
1 dash cinnamon (sounds weird, I know, but restrain yourself to JUST ONE DASH and it's amaaazing)

3/4 cup dry white wine
1 cup of diced tomatoes, drained of their juice (I found this to be just about half a can)
2 15-ounce cans of white beans, rinsed (I used Great Northern beans, but cannellini or "small white beans" work well here too)
4 cups of chicken broth (I used low sodium since the sausage has plenty)
1 bag (16 ounces) kale (I buy the triple-washed pre-chopped version because I am lazy)
1 bay leaf
1 teaspoon dried thyme
1 1/2 teaspoons dried tarragon
1 teaspoon dried rosemary
1-2 tablespoons of butter or your preferred oil for frying
~1 teaspoon red wine vinegar (you can add more to taste, but start with that)

Shaved or shredded Parmesan cheese, for topping

What You Do
1. In a large stockpot over medium heat, melt the butter or oil. Slice up the sausage into bite sized pieces by slicing it lengthwise first, and then into little half-moons. Fry that over medium heat until nicely browned.

2. While that's cooking, dice up your celery, carrots and shallots. Since I like consistency, I try to aim for a size that is close to the size of the beans for the carrots and celery, and a smaller dice for the shallots. When the sausage is done, scoop it out to drain on a paper towel and, in the same fat, fry up your veggies for about 5-6 minutes until they're golden. Mince your garlic and toss that in with the dash of cinnamon, frying for an additional 2 minutes until fragrant.

3. Now add the wine. Again, if you're anything like me (that is, an inexcusable lush), that just means tipping your wine glass over until it looks like 3/4 of a cup. Ta dah! A miraculous excuse for a refill. The thing with cooking with wine (in the actual food anyway) is that you want to cook it down quite a bit; that raw wine taste in food is just nasty, and happens when you add wine at the same time as other liquids. So you'll want to cook this for about...meh, maybe 3-4 minutes until most of the liquid is gone.

4. Throw in everything else! The beans, sausage, tomatoes, chicken broth, bay leaf, and kale. If your kale is like what I had, even though it comes prewashed and pre-cut there are still some stemmy bits in there. Kale stems are tough and bitter (like some of my exes) and I don't particularly care for them (no comment), so I tear off the stems while I'm tossing it into the pot. Bring it to a good boil and then let that all simmer nicely for about 10 minutes.Sprinkle in your dried spices (adjust salt & pepper to taste at this stage if you like) and simmer another 10-15 minutes or so, or until everything is tender and your house smells droolworthy.

5. Remove from heat, stir in the teaspoon of red wine vinegar, and serve with Parmesan cheese on top with a thick hunk of garlic bread. TO. DIE. FOR.
Posted on October 23, 2013 .