Black bean galette with smoked sun-dried tomatoes and chipotle

The ever so agreeable Two Hearted

I have an unhealthy obsession with galette dough. It has all but five ingredients, and it just never fails. It's got bite, it's flaky without compromise, and it is remarkably forgiving when it's rolled out. It takes a bit of patience to get the technique down. I prefer hand mashing the ice cold butter in with my hand and a fork, but a stand mixer or hand mixer would make this convenient dough, ready much faster. If you make this and live in a hot climate, ice the counter down with ice or ice packs, before you roll it out. It'll help keep the butter in solid form.

This galette has black beans, smoked sun-dried tomatoes, and queso quesadilla, but you can also just follow the fast and furious black beans empanada post for another version of this exact recipe. The smoked sun-dried tomatoes taste like bacon! I kid you not! They are so delicious! The queso quesadilla is similar to a medium white cheddar (or an oude gouda) and a mont jack or light cheddar could be used instead. Serve with a smoky hot salsa, and salad. Leftovers can last up to a week in the fridge.


Black bean galette with smoked sun-dried tomatoes and chipotle.  
Yield: 6 servings, large-ish wedges, but more likely to serve 4 hungry people.
Ingredients:
1 recipe galette dough
2-3 tbsp tomato chunks, or pizza sauce
2 cups cooked black beans, or 1 14 oz can black beans rinsed and drained
1 green onion, 2-3 green onions if small, chopped fine
handful cilantro chopped
zest of a lime
1 chipotle pepper, chopped fine plus 1 and 1/2 tbsp adobo sauce
1-2 tsp cumin
1-2 tbsp smoked sun dried tomatoes, roughly chopped
4 oz quesadilla cheese (queso quesadilla or mont jack and cheddar blend), sliced thinly or grated.


Directions:
If you have an hour or so, prep the galette dough and store it in the fridge until you've assembled the pie ingredients. It should take less than an hour to prep. This step can be assembled ahead of time.

Preheat the oven to 375º F/190º C. For the filling, place all ingredients, except the cheese, in a large mixing bowl and stir to combine. Adjust the seasonings for taste.

When ready, roll out the galette dough on the counter up to 14" in diameter, about 1/4" thick. Once rolled out, fold into quarters and place on the back of a baking sheet. Unfold the quarters, you want the edges to hang off the baking sheet. Spoon a few tomato chunks onto the rolled out galette dough, and make a circle about 10" wide. This should be a very thin layer. Spoon the black bean mixture on top, top with the cheese, and fold the galette onto itself making pleats as you fold up. Bake in the oven for 30-40 minutes, or until golden brown. Let stand a few minutes before cutting and serving.

Thank you Sara: A Bell's Two Hearted accompanies this quite well. I could nerd out on the acidity and the complimentary mouth feel of light hop presence matching the spiciness of the chipotle, but I had this along with a Victory Prima Pils, and while they were both delicious, the Two Hearted felt like it held up to the galette. Mmm Two Hearted. Mmmm.

Ubiquitous Lentils

Ubiquitous spicy lentils

I make this dish when I remember to cook lentils, because the recipe makes a lot of lentils, and the dish can go in everything. These ubiquitous lentils were used to top a salad, as a side dish to enchiladas, they were stuffed inside calzones, and were consumed after Friday happy hour. I've been cooking up plain lentils and beans lately to have on hand to add to many other dishes. Pre-cooked plain beans and lentils can be added to soups, pastas, salads, top pizzas, thrown into burritos or quesadillas, or put on toast. Canned varieties are a fine substitute, but home-cooking them is easier and cheaper. I must have been thinking about Herbivoracious's Mexican cowboy beans when I made this, so I'm dedicating these lentils to that delicious blog.

I just got done reading Mark Bittman's essay Cooking Solves Everything: How Time in the Kitchen Can Save Your Health, Your Budget, and Even the Planet. If your familiar with Bittman, you'll know he writes about food and cooking with a real food real ingredients mentality. As a cook, it was inspirational and reminded me how important it is to share cooking, in whatever fashion, with others because home-cooked meals made from largely unprocessed foods are rare. If you cook simple healthy foods on a daily basis you have the ability to impact behaviors of others around you because cooking and feeding people involves people to react to what you are putting in front of them whether it tastes good or bad.

Cooking and sharing meals changes the perceptions of the how and what of cooking meals. Cooking impacts health because by cooking on a daily basis you have the ability to cook healthy foods and serve yourself normal portions of food, and avoid prepared foods that derive the majority of their flavor from salt (either as sodium or MSG), fat, sugar, and other flavor enhancers. These foods, the bulk of which are highly processed, or restaurant and fast foods, are bad for health. Bad. Bad. Bad.

Cooking, while not as obvious as it seems, supports local food economies. Bittman argues that cooks, that cook a lot get selective about ingredients, and are tuned into the cost of the food they are buying; they purchase seasonally, not because they are dedicated locavores, or trendy foodies, but because cooks purchase and select the foods they cook with. Most grocery stores, while they stock huge varieties of fresh fruits and vegetables, run the best deals on seasonal produce. The best part about this, is that it's usually right in front of you as you go into any grocery store.

I have been following the Food Day events that have been going around nationally. My friend, Alyse, helped organize the NC Food Day where they organized over 1060 lbs of fresh fruits and veg for needy families. The Food Day campaign aims to raise awareness and action on local foods policies to support local food economies, promote sustainable agriculture, protect the environment by exposing big agribusiness marketing and manufacturing, and improve nutrition and chronic disease knowledge. It fits closely with the Bittman's essay because cooking is a one-step action to supporting better health and stronger food economies.

Ubiquitous Lentils

Ingredients:

olive or peanut oil for sauteing

1 onion, chopped

2-3 cloves garlic, minced

a tad bit of beer to reduce (optional)

2 tomatoes, chopped, or diced plain canned tomatoes

salt to taste

1 chipotle pepper, chopped

1 tsp herbs (optional, such as oregano or thyme)

1 tbsp cumin

2-3 cups cooked lentils, more or less, or 2 cans of lentils, rinsed and drained.

water to bring everything together, or broth

Fresh squeeze of lime

Directions:

1. In a wide and deep saute pan, cook onions and garlic together in olive oil over medium-high heat. After they start looking golden, reduce them a bit with a splash or two of beer. You can use any variety you like. You don't have beer? No worries, just skip. Cooking and quaffing a beer are side by side activities in my book. I tend to drink a lot of Belgian strong golden ales (such as Duvel), so I used a few splashes just to see what it would taste like, it was good.

2. It will sound fancy and smell good. Stir in the tomatoes, salt, chopped chipotle peppers, herbs and cumin. Stir it all around, and then add the cooked lentils.

3. Add in the broth or water and cook until combined and reduced down a bit. Should take about 20 minutes, or less. Squeeze with lime and serve. Can store up to a week in the fridge.  

5-bean chili with Leffe brown beer and chipotle peppers

I try to cook beans from scratch because I like that they aren't too processed, but I use canned beans too. To make it easier to use dried beans, I'll share how I normally prep them. I either soak the beans, in a huge bowl filled with lots of water, first thing in the morning, or I soak them overnight. If you soak them in the morning, you can cook the beans when you prep dinner; if you soak overnight, you can cook them first thing in the morning. They can cook, mostly ignored, in a large soup stockpot, or pressure cooker, or crock-pot (see this post on cooking beans and lentils). Once done cooking, you can store the cooled beans and broth in the fridge until ready to use. If you start doing this 2 days per week, you'll have lots of healthy beans to throw into random dishes. For example, stirring in a cup of mixed beans into a pasta dish, topping a salad, filling a burrito with them, or beans on toast. Or perhaps some spicy chili for a cool fall day?

I've used the Belgian Leffe brown beer for this because it has a balanced subtle sweetness, and I like the malty notes it left in the chili. Use any brown or amber beers (or really any beer you feel like dumping into a soup pot) with a nice body and aroma. Plus it's always cool to cook with beer. 

5-bean chili with Leffe brown beer and chipotle peppers

Ingredients: listed in order of use

Yield: 4 servings, about 1 and 1/2 cups

1 and 1/4 cup dried beans, (any mixture of dried black beans, chickpeas, kidney beans, pinto beans, white beans) soaked and cooked; Canned beans are totally fine too. Use 2 or 3, 14 oz cans of different canned beans.

1 tsp olive oil

1 red onion

1 bay leaf

2 cloves garlic, chopped

1 cup Leffe dark beer, slightly more if foamy at first (let it reduce by half), 

1 cup chopped green bell pepper

2 Tbsp chili powder (recipe below)

1 small canned chipotle pepper, about 1 tbsp chopped pepper, add more for extra heat

remainder of beer

1 cup canned diced tomatoes

1 cup corn, frozen or canned

1 tbsp fresh lime juice

cilantro to garnish

1/2 tsp salt (to taste if not enough)

yogurt and shredded cheese (optional for garnish)

Chili powder:

1 T of smoked paprika

1 T cumin

1 T oregano (or other mixed herbs such as thyme, mint,)

1/8 tsp cayenne powder

1/4 tsp cinnamon

1/2 tsp salt

This is a variation that can be adjusted to your taste and preference. The smoked paprika is very delicious in this dish. I'd recommend adding a tsp to the chili just before serving. Mix all the spices together in a small bowl and set aside until ready to use.

Directions:

1. Saute onions and garlic in the olive oil. Once the onions turn a bit golden, add in 1 cup or more of the beer. It will foam and settle down, releasing a delicious smell. Let it reduce by half, then add in the green bell peppers.
2. Add in 2 T of the spice mixture and the chipotle peppers (a chopped chipotle pepper should be about 2 tbsp).
3. Add the cooked beans to the pot along with the about 1 cup of the bean broth. If using canned beans, rinse and drain them (it removes the salty brine taste), and use 1 cup water instead. Pour the rest of the beer into the chili, along with 1 cup of chopped tomatoes. Stir to combine, turn up heat and simmer for 30 minutes. Before serving add in 1 cup of canned corn (if using frozen corn add it in 10 minutes before the chili is done). Stir in rest of beer and 1tbsp of lime juice.

Top with a dollop of plain yogurt, shredded cheese and garlic bread.

Fast and Furious Black Bean Empanadas

Just when I was beginning to think chipotle peppers were so two years ago, I pulled some out of the freezer. Once opened, canned chipotle peppers can be frozen. When ready to use, just remove them and chop them into the dish you're preparing. These are spicy empanadas, use 1 pepper or 1/2 if you don't like spicy foods. The chipotle lends a subtle smokiness. Ready-made pastry dough and canned black beans make this a fast dish. These are easy to put together once you have all the ingredients ready.

Fast and Furious Black Bean Empanadas

Serves: 4 Yield: 1 large empanada

1 ready-made refrigerated pastry dough

1 cup dried black beans, soaked and cooked, or 1, 14 oz can black beans, rinsed and drained

4 spring onions, chopped

1/2 cup or more cream cheese

2 chipotle peppers, chopped. Handle peppers with gloves.

1/3 cup tomato chunks, from canned tomato chunks

1/2 cup shredded cheese or queso quesadilla

Preheat oven to 400 °F on the broiler setting. Move the racks to the lowest setting. You will broil for the first 10 minutes, then turn the heat down to 350 °F and bake for another 30 minutes.

Directions:

1. Add chopped green onions to a large mixing bowl. Add in cream cheese and chopped chipotle peppers. Stir to combine.

2. Add in black beans and continue to stir together until combined. The beans should be coated. Adjust for taste. I didn't add any salt, and found that the chipotle gave it enough smoke and salt.

3. Roll out the pastry on a large baking sheet or cold pizza stone. You should be able to unroll the pastry directly onto the baking sheet or stone. Add half of the prepared filling to one-half of the pastry. You'll fold it over on one side like a calzone, or the way you'd fold a sheet of paper in half. Spread the black beans in an even layer. Leave a 3/4" border.

4. Fold the pastry on top of the black bean mixture and fold up the edges slightly. Take the tines of a fork and push the rolled edges down to seal in the stuffing.

5. Bake at 400 °F on broil for the first 8-10 minutes. Turn heat down to 350 °F and bake another 30 minutes.  

Chipotle Salsa

Salsa ingredients + lazy Friday afternoon + bad photography = chipotle salsa!

orange bell peppers getting diced

green bell peppers getting prepped

After hand-chopping almost a dozen of these guys, I realized I needed a picture. Tomato love.

Jars of chipotle salsa

and since it's a lazy Friday:

Duds' shows off his stretching

Not sure if salsa is kitty appropriate

This is a delicious, hearty, spicy, tasty, slightly smoky fresh salsa and I can't wait to share it on here. I've been eating it this entire past month. The recipe comes from my family in NC, I can't remember when I copied it down, but I've held onto it for a few years. It's easy to prepare and freezes well. You can chop all ingredients by hand – it'll take about an hour; a food processor will certainly speed things up, and can be used as well.

S and K's Chipotle Salsa

2 and ½ lbs ripe tomatoes, chopped fine

1 onion, chopped fine

1-2 bell peppers (green, red, or yellow), chopped fine

1-2 cloves garlic, minced

1 small can, 7.5 oz chipotle peppers in adobo sauce, chopped fine

2 tsp of adobo sauce

1-2 tbsp lime juice

1-2 tbsp vinegar (e.g. white-wine vinegar is fine)

1-2 tsp salt

1-2 tsp cumin

1-2 tsp oregano (dried is fine)

½ cup cilantro, chopped fine

For a super hot salsa, count 1-2 chipotle peppers per tomato; for a medium salsa use 4-5 chipotle peppers for the batch, and for a mild salsa use 2-3 chipotle peppers for the batch. Use gloves to handle peppers. Start off adding half the chipotle amount, taste and adjust, and add extra as needed. The salsa can get spicy quickly.

If using a food processor you'll whip this up in no time. Attach the chopping blades and mince whole garlic first. Add in onions (prepped as quarters) and chop to combine. Chop until desired consistency is reached. Remove to a bowl, or a large soup stockpot. Add in bell peppers (prepped as quarters), chop then remove. Finally, add in tomatoes (prepped as quarters) with chipotle peppers (kept whole) and chop until desired consistency is reached. Add all chopped ingredients to a large mixing bowl, or a large soup stockpot. Stir in adobo sauce, lime juice through cilantro and combine. If adding additional chipotle peppers, just chop them in the food processor and add to the pot.

Directions:

1. Combine all ingredients together in a large soup stockpot. Stir to combine and adjust for taste.
2. Heat up salsa over medium heat and simmer 10-15 minutes. Once cool, ladle into jars and set in fridge. You can freeze extras, thaw overnight in the fridge and it's ready to eat.

Five Bean Chipotle Chili

This American in Belgium found canned chipotle in adobo sauce at Exotic World (get ‘jer mind out the gutter - it is an international food market). Where I also stocked up on over-priced hot sauce, pinto beans (my god do I love pinto beans), papadums, phyllo dough, Turkish feta cheese, and cilantro. 

This chili is perfect for cold weather. It comes together easily, and although the recipe calls for home-cooked beans, canned beans are a fine substitute. Chipotle peppers and pinto beans are among some of my favorite foods. This turns out to be a spicy chili which carries a lot of heat. Serve with some sour cream or yogurt, green onions, shredded cheese, and cilantro.  I made a quick chili powder out of some pantry spices. It's posted below the recipe.

Yield: 4 servings, 1 and 1/2 cups each

Ingredients:
1/3 cup pinto beans, dried
1/3 cup black beans, dried
1/3 cup kidney beans, dried
1/3 cup garbanzo beans, dried
1/3 cup navy or cannelini beans, dried
2 quarts of fresh water or enough to cover and soak the beans so that the beans can expand.
1 tsp olive oil
1 cup red onions or regular onions diced
3 cloves garlic, minced
1 14 oz can chopped tomatoes
2 T chili powder (recipe below)
2-3 cups water or vegetable broth (or 1 vegetarian bouillon cube)
1 chipotle pepper, chopped (from a can of chipotle peppers in adobo sauce)
2 T of adobo sauce
1 cooked, diced potato, optional
large handful cilantro, chopped
2-3 green onions, chopped into chives.


Chili powder
Yield: 2 tbsp
1 tsp red chili powder
2 tsp cumin
2 tsp oregano
1 tsp salt
1 tsp garlic powder
1/4 tsp cinnamon

Directions:
1. Prepare the beans using the soak and cook method or by using a pressure cooker.  Cook the beans with 1/8 tsp asafoetida powder and 1 bay leaf.  Asafoetida powder is meant to reduce the gas-causing effects of bean consumption. Set aside the cooked beans, until ready to use. Alternatively, you could use different varieties (kidney, pinto, black beans, chickpeas) of canned beans (14 oz cans).
2. In a large soup stockpot heat up olive oil over medium heat. Once hot, add in garlic and onions and saute for 3-5 minutes.  Add in chili powder and stir to combine.
3. Add in tomato chunks with their sauce and stir together.  Add in beans, water or broth if using, chipotle pepper, adobo sauce, and stir to combine.
4. Cook uncovered until the chili begins to boil, then cover the pot with a lid, turn down heat to medium, and simmer the beans for 30 minutes. Stir it often, and adjust for taste. You can add more chili powder or chipotle peppers if you want it spicier.
5.  If using the cooked potato, add it in the last 10 minutes of cooking time.
6.  Garnish the chili with sour cream, chives, cilantro, and shredded cheese if desired.