Sweet Potato and Black Bean Burritos

Ingredients: serves 2
2 sweet potatoes

1/2 cup diced onions

2 garlic cloves, minced or pressed
1/2 minced fresh green chile
2 tsp. ground cumin
1 tsp. ground coriander
1 can black beans (15-oz., rinsed &drained)
1/4 C. lightly packed cilantro leaves - chopped - optional
1 T. lemon juice
4 six-inch flour tortillas
tomato salsa for topping

Preparation:

1. Pierce the sweet potatoes several times with a fork, then microwave on high for 6-8 minutes or until a fork goes in easily. Let them cool a bit.
2. Saute the diced onions and garlic in 1-2 tsp olive oil
3. scoop out the potato flesh into a bowl, add the beans and mash together.
4. Stir in the spices, lemon juice and cilantro if using
5. Warm the tortillas in the microwave (wrap in a towel and heat on high for 30-60 second)
6. place 1/4 cup or so of filling in tortilla and roll up.
7. Place filled tortillas in a casserole or baking dish, cover with a damp towel (paper or cotton), then plastic wrap (or the dish's cover if it has one) and microwave on 70-80% power for 5 minutes or until heated through/

I served these with cucumber and radish salad: peel cukes and slice thinly. Slice radishes thinly. Dress with plain non-fat Greek yogurt, dried dill, salt & pepper to taste.

Day 29: Black Bean & Polenta Casserole

I like one dish meals. This one has many variations, depending on what is in the house at the time. You can make this with the polenta that comes in a roll, or the "quick" polenta mix in a box, or you can make your own polenta. There are also many versions on line. Here is tonight's version.

Black Bean and Polenta Casserole

1/2 a leftover yellow onion - chopped
4 "spring onions" from the Thanksgiving CSA share - chopped
1 medium zucchini - chopped
1 cup chopped green pepper from the freezer
1 cup corn from the freezer
2 cans black beans (Goya organic)
1 can chopped tomatoes with mild green chilies
1 clove garlic - chopped
olive oil
chili powder, salt, pepper to taste
1 polenta "roll" - purchased - sliced into 12-14 rounds
shredded cheddar cheese  - 1-2 cups - depending on how cheesy you like it - and calorie count

Pre-heat the oven to 350 F. Saute the onions and garlic in about 2 tsp olive oil for about 3 minutes, add the zuchinni, cook about 5 minutes more, add the frozen corn & peppers, cook 3 minutes. Add everything else except the polenta and cheese. Add about 1/3 can of water with the tomatoes. Let this cook together over med-high heat while you prepare the pan & polenta. Spray a casserole with olive oil spray. place half of the polenta slices in the bottom of the casserole dish (or 8 x 8 baking pan) sprinkle half the cheese over the polenta. You can either put all the bean and veggie mixture over the cheese, top with the remaining polenta slices and the remaining cheese OR put 1/2 the beans & veggies, then the polenta slices, then the other 1/2 of the beans & veggies,& top with the remaining cheese (which is what I did tonight). Cover and bake about 1/2 hour at 350 F. This makes about 6 good size servings.

Day 4: Black Bean Chilaquile

I was too tired to type when I got home from work last night, so here is last night's entry.

I am a book person. I love them, and I have a lot of them. I have a bookshelf full of children's books in the guest bedroom even though my kids are grown. I have a full set of the "classics" given to me by a favorite aunt and uncle, all the books from my french literature class at college, two shelves of books on Jewish topics, and lots of paperbacks (including the full Stephanie Plum series by Janet Evanovitch).  I have forty-seven cookbooks on a little blue bookshelf in my kitchen, a dozen more on the top shelf of one of the cabinets and six or seven more that I never use (but can't seem to part with) on a shelf upstairs (in the guest bedroom with the children's books).

Everyone tells me that books are obsolete. I know I could put more books on one of the new electronic readers than I have on every bookshelf in my house. I know I can find just about every recipe in every cookbook I own somewhere on the web, but I like books. I can't part with the books I read to my son and my daughter in the rocking chair, I really do re-read the books I love every once and a while (have I mentioned my notoriously bad memory? Sometimes it's like reading them again for the first time).  I love to read the inscription that tells about the typeface, I love the way a new book smells, I love the way a book feels in my hands.

I have a lovely wrought-iron cookbook stand and when I cook from a recipe I prop the book up on the stand. My kids bring their laptops into the kitchen, put the recipe up on the screen, play some music from their i-tunes library, and look up the definitions for cooking terms they're not familiar with. I'm not there yet. I'm stubbornly old fashioned, yes, and I don't have laptop. Instead, I have two college educated children and four cars. Maybe by the time I can afford to buy the laptop, I will be ready to give up the cookbook on the pretty wrought iron stand...maybe I'll get a Kindle too.

The long awaited point here is that I followed a recipe for last night's dinner. I made Black Bean Chilaquile from the MooseWood Restaurant Low-Fat Favorites cookbook. Of course the recipe is available on the web (http://www.food.com/recipe/black-bean-chilaquile-43471 - here's one place, I'm sure you can find more). I used spinach from this week's CSA share, CSA corn I froze in August, Garden of Eatin' baked tortilla chips and low-fat instead of fat free cheddar. I used store-bought salsa. I took the chilaquile out of the oven just as I was leaving for work; took my portion with me and re-heated it in the microwave a couple of hours later, it was a little jumbled together but tasty. The family verdict was that I should make it again sometime - and I can do that - because I pretty much followed the recipe for once.