Texas Caviar

Texas Caviar: Only you can decide if this is a salad or dip.

Texas Caviar is an all time favorite recipe from my childhood.  I remember being up at my grandparent's cabin and eating enormous mixing bowls full of it with my cousins over the Fourth of July weekend every year.  When my cousin, Bjorn, first brought his girlfriend, Ann, up to the cabin, she volunteered to bring a dip.  She brought the world's most enormous container of Texas Caviar.  My other cousin and I took a test bite, and then another, just to be sure it was as delicious as it seemed.

As soon as Ann was out of the room, my cousin said to me, "I can tell she's a keeper; look at how much salsa she brought!"

Sure enough, the next summer Bjorn and Ann got married.

Texas Caviar is an awesomely popular and widely adapted recipe, and this recipe comes to you courtesy of my Mom's best friend Jeri.  

I have, of course, taken more than my fair share of liberties with the recipe, but I think we can all agree that a great recipe like this is like a great house.  You might change from Victorian furniture, to shag carpet, to DIY vintage, but the bones of the house stay the same.  It's the same thing with this recipe.  I might have added a few ingredients, and subbed out a few ingredients, but the heart of the recipe remains the same.

My riff on Jeri's recipe reminds me of one of my favorite passages in Bread and Wine by Shauna Niequist, a book that my mom gave to me for mother's day. Niequist writes, "I'm not really a recpie girl. My Mom teases me about it, knowing that when I say I used a recipe, all it means is that at some point, some list of ingredients and techniques were involved as I threw things in pans, as I sliced, poured, salted and peppered with seeming randomness.  She does not particularly appreciate this cooking style, and sometimes she has to leave the kitchen because my loosey-goosey approach makes her nervous."

When I was making this Texas Caviar, I had a hard time deciding if it was a salsa or a salad. I've landed on both, but mainly because we ran out of chips, and I did not want even a single bite of this delicious dish go to waste.  

The black eyed peas and garbanzo beans form the tender and mild backbone of this Texas Caviar, but the real flavor party starts to happen when you add sweet peppers and ripe corn, the lightly acidic bite of grape tomatoes.  Creamy, rich avocados contrast with the sweet and acidic vegetables, and the pungent zest of red onions and cilantro highlights all of the flavors.  But to make this dish sing, you really need Jeri's balsamic vinaigrette. Her dressing is a perfectly simple and balanced dressing that soaks into the beans and the vegetables causing each distinct flavor to harmonize, like a very small symphony...in my belly.

The specific recipe I made is below, but leave a comment to let me know your favorite adaptations.  I'm going to be making this again on Saturday, and I'm always looking to try something new.

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Texas Caviar

by Hannah Rounds May-19-2014

Texas Caviar is a bean salsa. Perfect for eating with tortilla chips, or not. Depending on how you're feeling that day.

Ingredients

• 2 Cans or 1 Cup Dried Black Eyed Peas- Cooked
• 1 Can or 2/3 Cup Dried Garbanzo Beans- Cooked
• 1 Cup Fresh or Frozen Corn Kernels
• 1 Cup Grape Tomatoes- Diced
• 1 Small Red Onion- Diced
• 1 Avocado- Diced
• 1/2 Bunch Cilantro- Finely Diced
• 1/4 Cup Balsamic
• 1/4 Cup Olive Oil
• 1.5 Tablespoons Sugar
• 1 Teaspoon Salt

Instructions

1. Mix beans, vegetables, and cilantro in a very large bowl.2. Whisk Balsamic, olive oil, sugar and salt until well combined3. Gently pour dressing over vegetables and mix until everything is soaked.4. Refrigerate for at least two hours to allow vegetables to marinate before serving.

Details

Prep time: 20 mins Cook time: 2 hour Total time: 2 hour 20 mins Yield: 10 Servings

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Pork and Black Bean Empanadas

Empanadas: fried pockets of love!

I think empanada is a fun word, and I recently found myself whispering empanada as I was creating analysis for my day job.  I don't know why, perhaps its that these empanadas are so crave-worthy that I was willing them into existance, but more likely it was reflexive.  The same way that Will Ferrell as Buddy the Elf says, "Francisco, that's a fun name! Fran-cis-co... Francisco!"

Empanadas are a fun word and fun food.  I associate empanadas with fair food because my abuela does not make Mexican food (cheesy potatoes, yes: Tex-Mex, no), but it turns out that even this gringa can make a pretty mean empanada.

I was inspired to make empanadas from the recipe on the bag of corn flour that I got from Aldi (I am linking to Aldi so that you can go to their website and become inspired to become Aldi lovers like me and my Sister in Law).

You may be able to tell from picture that I didn't have the best luck shaping these decadent bundles of joy.  I will again blame that on not having an abuela to to teach me how to handle corn dough.  Even with the odd shape, I managed to get the proportion of dough to filling right, and I strongly recommend giving these a try, and once the fried aroma hits your nostrils there's little chance that you will be able to resist.

The dough is flaky like a corn flavored pie crust and it encases a juicy, succulent filling of pulled pork, fried potatoes and black beans.  As the crust crumbles in your mouth, the heavenly flavor of fatty, briny, porky goodness bursts onto the scene, accented by the subdued spiciness of the black beans and the crisp yet creamy combination that only fried potatoes can bring.

Is it too late for me to whip up a batch right now? My head says yes, but heart says I can't handle a heart attack, so also yes.

Frying food is not exactly the healthiest life choice, nor is it the cleanest one, so I don't do a lot of it.  I will suggest that keeping the oil hot enough to fry the food, but cool enough to keep it from scorching is key.  Unfortunately, the only number I can give you for that temperature is between 3 and 5 on my stove.

I served these with cilantro, sour cream, salsa and peas.  Peas sound out of place, but they are common in Indian cuisine and Indian and Mexican food share a lot of common ingredients so it works.

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Pork and Black Bean Empanadas

by Hannah Rounds

These empanadas are perfect for increasing the fun (and delicious) factor in your kitchen.

Ingredients

• 2 Cups Corn Flour
• 1.25 Cups Water
• 1/2 Teaspoon Salt
• 1 Cup Unseasoned Black Beans
• 1/2 Cup Pulled Pork
• 1 Potato Cubed
• 1/2 Tablespoon Cumin
• 1/2 Teaspoon Coriander Seeds
• 1 Teaspoon Seasoning Salt
• 1/2 Teaspoon Garlic Powder
• 1.5 Teaspoons Chili Powder
• 1/3 Cup Vegetable Oil

Instructions

1. Mix corn flour, water and salt to form a dough2. Roll out about 1/3 of dough to somewhere between 1/8 and 1/4 inch thick.3. Using a shape tracer (I used the lid from a mayo jar), cut out 5-6 dough circles and set aside4. Repeat with the rest of dough.5. Heat a small amount of vegetable oil (about 2 Tablespoons) in a large skillet and add potato and all spices. Fry potatoes on medium-high heat for about ten minutes.6. Add black beans and pork to potatoes and heat thoroughly.7. Place one very large spoonful of filling in the center of a dough cutout then add a second dough cutout on top.8. Use your fingers to create a seal around the filling.9. Repeat for all 8 empanadas.10. Heat remaining vegetable oil in a skillet with a lid.11. Fry empanadas about three at a time for two minutes on each side.12. Sprinkle with salt and serve immediately.

Details

Prep time: 45 mins Cook time: 15 mins Total time: 1 hour Yield: 8 Empanadas (3-4 servings)

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Black Bean "Meatballs"

Black Bean Balls! Alliteration makes all food delicious!

Today, I had a rather odd and off topic conversation at work about cheating in school verses "cheating" in the workplace.  The biggest hurdle that many of us had to overcome in joining the workforce from our education is that cheating is not only fine, its encouraged.  Meaning, you should never write code from scratch if there's already code existing.  You should never do a project that's been done before because its a waste of time.


And it struck me, that is why I've started this blog. Because I love to learn and discover and grow, and  I want to let my project lead me instead of my deadlines.  But there's not time for that at work, because...work.
Upon further reflection, I've realized this blog isn't totally original.  In every post I have several links to other blogs or recipes, and I'm not totally sure that I'm making something better.  I'm okay with this, but it does mean I am not a genius yet, at least not by the talent borrows, genius steals paradox proposed by T.S. Eliot.

T.S. Eliot wrote, "One of the surest tests is the way in which a poet borrows. Immature poets imitate; mature poets steal; bad poets deface what they take, and good poets make it into something better, or at least something different. The good poet welds his theft into a whole of feeling which is unique, utterly different than that from which it is torn; the bad poet throws it into something which has no cohesion. A good poet will usually borrow from authors remote in time, or alien in language, or diverse in interest."

Nobody except Picasso ever claimed that they were great from the beginning, and the 10,000 hour rule proposed by Malcolm Gladwell seems to be pretty well accepted as pop-sociology fact, so I hope that someday I will no longer be a blogger who defaces what I borrow, but who steals content only to make it better.  

In the meantime, I would like to thank all the recipe bloggers and other sources of inspiration for giving me free access to your work and your life.  I am really thankful that you enable me to crowdsource my dinner.

Thank you all for allowing me to philosophize over this triviality of a blog.  And onto the recipe.
These black bean "meatballs" are incredibly delicious, I got this inspiration from Foxes Love Lemons.  I definitely like them better than any real meatballs that I've ever had.  I would compare the texture favorably to falafel, but the flavor is distinctly Italian.  Within one bite, the Mad Scientist told me that these were on the keeper list, and Littlest screeched with delight every time I gave him a bite.  Its so fun for me be able to feed Littlest the same food as the Mad Scientist and I eat.

Black Bean "Meatballs"

by Hannah Rounds

This meatless main dish is hearty and delicious, and better than any real meatballs that I've ever eaten.

Details

Prep time: 20 mins  Cook time: 4 hour  Total time: 4 hour 30 mins < span class="value-title" title="PT4H30M">

Yield: 10 golf ball sized pieces

Ingredients

• 1 Cup Dried Black Beans- Soaked overnight and rinsed
• 1 Tablespoon Garlic Powder
• 2 Teaspoons Salt
• 1 Tablespoon Italian Seasoning
• 1/2 White Onion Chopped
• 4 Cloves Garlic Minced or Pressed
• 1 Egg
• 1/2 Cup Flavored Bread Crumbs
• 1-2 Tablespoons Olive Oil

Instructions

1. Cook beans with 2 cups of water, garlic powder, salt, and italian seasoning in a crockpot for four hours (low heat) 2. Drain beans and set 2 cups in a large bowl (this should be most of the beans, but I always manage to have some leftover) 3. Combine beans, onion, bread crumbs and egg and mix thoroughly using your hands. 4. For balls about the size of a golf ball and set onto a plate.  5. Heat oil, and in small batches of about 3-5 pieces fry the meatballs. Be sure that each side of the meatball gets a nice crisp crust (should be a very dark brown) 6. Serve with marinara sauce over pasta.

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Spicy Black Bean Cakes

Charleston 2008- In college, rules like, wear sunscreen, don't apply.

One thing that I miss a lot about college is the Dining Hall.  It's not so much the food that I miss but the guarantee that I would see one of my 200 closest friends every time I needed something to eat.  I would sometimes spend 2-3 hours in the DH having marathon meals where I floated from table to table catching up with every person that I had ever met (and a few I hadn't).

I could have achieved this same interaction in the library (oh, James B. Duke, how I miss the long nights glued to a computer in your 24 hour room), but Furman has a weird stigma about library socialization... at a minimum you had to pretend to study. Since I like to forgo false pretenses, I spent more time in the dining hall than the library.

Despite the time that I spent in the DH, I never got sick of the food.  Oh sure, there were days when the salad bar consisted of black olives, iceberg lettuce, and honey mustard dressing, but in all honesty, that's two more ingredients than I usually have on hand for salads these days anyhow.  

One dish, that never failed to impress me, was the black bean cakes which were essentially fried piles of black beans served with shredded lettuce, pico de gallo and thousand island dressing.  I don't know why it always tasted so good, but I loved it.

When I returned to Minnesota post college, I never bothered to recreate the black bean dish, until I saw an episode of Diners, Drive-Ins and Dives where the chef creates black bean cakes, and I new that I needed to recreate it ASAP.  Now that I've finally got it right, I'm sharing with you.

Spicy Black Bean Cakes

Ingredients:
1 1/4 Cups of Cooked Spicy Black Beans (if using unseasoned canned beans see note below)
5 Cloves Garlic
1/2 Red Bell Pepper Diced
1/2 Green Bell Pepper Diced
1/2 Small Yellow Onion Diced
1 Jalepeno
1.5oz of Chipotle Peppers in Adobo Sauce
1.5T Olive Oil

Directions: 1. Saute Bell Peppers and yellow onion until onion is transluscent
2. Place Chipotle peppers, jalapeno, garlic and black beans in a food processor and grind for 10-20 pulses.  The garlic should be well integrated, and the beans should be broken down, but not mushy.
3. Combine bean puree and peppers and form into 6 patties
4. Fry patties in olive oil (about 4 minutes per side)
5. Serve with whatever sides you want, but fresh cilantro is a must.

Notes: If you are using canned beans, I recommend the addition of 1/2T Cumin and 1t Chile Powder

Other Recommendations: Sometimes I add red pepper flakes or a jalapeno pepper

Service Recommendations: Black Bean Cakes are a little one note on their own, so I recommend serving them with either a southwestern style salad, guacamole, rice, farro, or some other hearty component to the meal.  The flavors should be in the Tex-Mex category unless you choose to spice your black beans differently.

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Sweet Potato Fry Tacos

Hey Mom, do I look cool in Daddy's hat?

Do you have any friends who are so far on the bleeding edge of cool, that it takes about five years for you to catch up? (What, Matchbox 20 was cool 15 years ago?  Welcome to this millennium).  I seem to attract that kind of friend.  I can assure you that I am always the least cool of my friends, but I know that they must like me for my vivacious personality, good looks and ability to apologize profusely when I forget their birthdays.  Or they pity me.  Either one works for me.

When I was attending Furman University, I had very cool friends!

Hi Guys, I think you are cool!

Each of my friends were cool in their own way: post-hipster, zero effort and classy.  I probably should have clung to their trends like white on rice, but like everything else, it took me about four years to adopt their habits.  (In my defense, Save the Last Dance for Me is one of their favorite songs)

These are the friends that introduced me to the concept of food trends, fusion cooking (or eating), and Paleo (okay, not Paleo, blood sugar maintenance is a life or death thing for a type one diabetic).  They also only introduced me to Chicora Alley (a cool fusion restaurant), and Kelly (who is about to get Married!) convinced me to order sweet potato fry burritos, a vegetarian dish, so she could try a bite.

This is a recreation of that dish.  In order to get the recipe just right, I've adapted the recipe for sweet potato fries from The Art of Doing Stuff, and beans and slaw from CarpeSeason.

This recipe is awesome, but can only be done if you can start prepping at least two hours before dinner will be served.

Also, if anyone has found an easier method of effectively frying sweet potato fries, please give me the link.  I'm happy with the result of my method, but it has so much clean up that I don't like to do it very frequently.

Sweet Potato Fry Tacos

For the Beans:

1.5C of dry black beans rinsed and soaked (preferably overnight)

5-6C Cold Water

2T Dried Cuminw

1T Salt

1T Ground Black Pepper

1T Garlic Powder

For the sweet Potato Fries:

2 Sweet Potatos cut into fry shapes

1/4 C Corn Starch

Empty Bread Bag

Vegetable Oil for frying

Oven safe pan and lid

For the slaw:

1/2 Head of Cabbage

Juice of 2 Limes

1T Olive Oil

1/2T Salt

2.5T Sugar

1T Ground Black Pepper

Fistful of diced cilantro

For Serving:

Flour Tortillas (crisp in oven)

Fresh Cilantro

Sour Cream (flavored with Sriracha if you love that)

Avocado

Salsa

Directions:

Beans:

1. Place beans, water and seasonings in a pot and allow to simmer for two hours.  Stir it occasionally.  The water should cover the beans with at least one inch remaining on top, Depending on the diameter of your pot, you might need more water.

Slaw:

2. Slice cabbage into slaw size pieces

3. Add Lime Juice, Olive oil, cilantro and seasonings, and mix very thoroughly.

4. Add the sugar to your slaw, but taste as you go, allowing the slaw to rest will enhance the sugary flavor, and many people like less sugar than me

5. Allow Slaw to marinate in the fridge for 1-2 hours

Sweet Potato Fries:

6. Soak Sweet Potatoes (cut into fry shapes) in cold water for one hour

7. Rinse Sweet Potatoes and dry thoroughly with paper towels

8. Put corn starch in an empty bread bag and add a few sweet potatoes at a time.  Shake vigorously.  This yields sweet potato fries that are lightly coated in cornstarch. Place aside

9. Fill an oven safe pan with 3/8" of vegetable oil and place it, covered into oven at 450

10. When oil is hot, remove pan, and add sweet potatoes, cover again and place in oven for ten minutes.

11. Remove Pan, Drain fries on paper towels, and then put them back in the pan and back in the oven for ten more minutes (twice frying method).

12. Meanwhile, heat a griddle or a dry frying pan on the oven.

13. Remove fries, and place directly on the hot surface.  Fries will quickly crisp up and take on that nice golden color.

Assembly:

14. Place tortillas in warm oven for 1-2 minutes then assemble tacos with beans, sweet potato fries, slaw, and other fixings such as flavored sour cream, fresh cilantro, salsa and avocado

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Lentil and Tomato Curry

My junior year of college, I experienced lentils for the first time. I met a few friends for Indian food at a restaurant that I assume is now closed or has very poor search engine optimization. 

I remember walking through a strangely desolate parking lot into a dizzying array of gaudy decorations: gold elephants, red velvet curtains, fake mahogany pillars and Hindu Gods and Goddesses inexplicably situated next to Indian pop culture artifacts.  While Bollywood blasted and flashed on a huge screen situated in the waiting area, a pungent cloak of turmeric, coriander, and other unidentified spices enveloped me.

This is why I rarely travel, friends.  I was overwhelmed by a cultural experience at an Indian restaurant in Greenville, South Carolina.   You know that you were raised on suburban Protestant white bread when you experience culture shock upon entering a restaurant on American soil, but I digress.

In spite of my shock, the food was glorious and I ate dal or lentils for the first time.  I wanted to recreate the dish as soon as I got home, but I forgot the name of the food I had ordered (those one syllable dishes get me every time).  After an evening of unsuccessful searching with increasingly obscure and esoteric descriptions of this dish of dreams, I concluded that whatever I ate was not a food that mere mortals might make in their home kitchens.

Fast forward a few years, a co-worker from India came to Minneapolis and as is the tradition, we went to Bombay Bistro, an Indian Buffet.  Sitting next to her,  I pointed to the dal, and I said, “This is the best food in the whole universe.”  

Unsure of how to respond to my tendency toward hyperbole she dismissed me, “Bombay Bistro is the best food in the universe? I don’t think so.”

“No, dal is the best food in the whole world.  I wish I could make it at home,” I insisted

“Maybe you should Google a recipe; lentils are very easy to cook,” she said.

And my eyes were opened, a light came down from heaven.  How had I never connected that lentils and dal were the same food?  Why had I never Googled dal once I did learn the name?  A few months and a few recipes later, lentil curry is a household staple. 

This is one of my favorite recipes.  My version is inspired by this Spicy Red Lentil & Tomato Curry from Dramatic Pancake.  I’m sure that hers is better but I’ve never had the patience to follow the recipe from beginning to end, so here’s my version.

Red Lentil and Tomato Curry

Stock:

3C Stock (Vegetable or Chicken bonus points for homemade)

1.5T Red Curry Powder

1T Cumin

1T Coriander

1t Cinnamon

½ t Nutmeg

1/2t Paprika

1t Salt

1-2t Red Pepper Flakes

Vegetables:

3T Butter

3 Medium Carrots

4 Cloves Garlic

1 Large Onion

2T.Fresh grated ginger

3 Fresh tomatoes diced or one can diced tomatoes

1C Dry rinsed Lentils

Bring stock  to a low boil then add all the spices (Do this before you start chopping vegetables, and if you are really fast at chopping vegetables take a little break right now)

Peel and dice carrots and onion and set aside.  Mince garlic and grate ginger.

Heat butter and add ginger and garlic until it smells like you are an amazing cook and the garlic is a little brown; add carrots and onion and cook over low heat until onions are translucent.

Chop tomatoes (or open can) and add to vegetable mixture, let vegetables cook for at least ten more minutes.

In the meantime, rinse lentils and pick out the small stones. I don't bother soaking lentils, but if you're about that then you should have done that before step one, sorry.

Add vegetables and lentils to stock, cook over low heat until lentils are mushy and have absorbed all the stock (about 35 minutes)

Serve with basmati rice and cilantro.

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