From Recipes

Editor’s note: On Mondays, Kristen Swensson of Cheap, Healthy, Good swings by these parts to share healthy and delicious recipes with us. Take it away, Kristen!

[Photograph: Kristen Swensson]

Back in the olden days of yore, when I began eating a bit healthier, hummus became a major part of my meal plans. I spread it on pita. I ate it with vegetables. I sculpted it into the likeness of Alec Baldwin. Tasty and inexpensive, it provided valuable fiber and protein, as well as a substantial stand-in for richer, dairy-filled dips.

However, I’ve been experimenting with other legumes lately. It’s not that hummus has fallen out of favor. It’s just a big, bean-filled world out there, and I aim to actualize its full dip potential.

This Black Bean Dip comes from RecipeZaar, which is a fairly reliable resource, provided you stick to dishes rated at least four-and-a-half stars. While almost entirely fat-free, the dip is rich and hearty, with a nice kick. Fresh scallions and lime juice keep it lively, even though it’s made largely of pantry ingredients.

Admittedly, it’s not the most attractive dip in the world; and for what could be the first time, that has nothing to do with my ability to take a decent food photo. But appearance doesn’t necessarily coincide with flavor, right? I mean, I think we can all agree that baba ghanoush looks like baby puke, and squid ink pasta is essentially a Tim Burton set decoration.

Despite the aesthetics, it remains pretty dang delicious. Serve some before a Mexican feast or as part of your office lunch. You’ll be sated/happy either way, and it might make you forget about hummus. (At least for a little while, anyway.)

Black Bean Dip

Makes about 2 cups dip.

Adapted from RecipeZaar.

Ingredients

2 cups canned black beans, drained and rinsed
4 teaspoons tomato paste
3 tablespoons water
2 medium cloves garlic, minced
1 tablespoon lime juice
1/2 teaspoon ground cumin
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/8 teaspoon cayenne pepper
2 scallions, green parts chopped
2 tablespoons canned green chilies, chopped

Procedure

1. Combine beans, tomato paste, water, garlic, lime juice, cumin, salt, and cayenne in a food processor. Puree until it reaches a dip-like consistency. If you find it’s lacking something, add more. (I like a lot of lime juice.) Pour into a bowl.

2. Add scallions and green chilies to dip. Stir thoroughly to combine. Top with extra scallions and a few lime wedges. Serve with pita chips or vegetables.

Healthy & Delicious: Black Bean Dip
Kristen Swensson
Mon, 26 Apr 2010 13:00:00 GMT

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From Recipes

[Photograph: Caroline Russock]

One-Pot Roast Chicken

- serves 4 -

Adapted from In The Green Kitchen by Alice Waters.

Ingredients

1 three-pound chicken
Salt and fresh-ground black pepper
3 potatoes, peeled and thickly sliced
2 carrots, peeled and thickly sliced
2 onions, peeled and quartered
2 celery stalks, thickly sliced
4 large shallots, peeled
Fennel, squash, turnips, parsnips, or other vegetables (optional)
2 bay leaves
2 or 3 thyme sprigs
2 to 3 tablespoons butter

Procedure

1. First prepare the chicken. To remove the wishbone at the top of the breast, use a small knife to scrape along the bone to expose it, then insert the knife and run it along the bone, separating it from the flesh. Use your fingers to loosen it further, grasp the tip of the wishbone, and pull it out. Tuck the wing tips back and under the neck.

2. Tying the chicken plumps the breast up and brings the legs into position for even roasting. Cut a length of cotton string. With the chicken on its back, slip the string under the tail and bring the ends up over the legs to form a figure eight. Loop over the end of each leg and draw the strings tight to bring the legs together. Draw the string back under the legs and wings on either side of the neck. Pull tight, wrap one end around the neck, and tie off the two ends. Salt the chicken evenly all around. Coarse salt has a good texture of large grains that makes it easy to calibrate how much salt you are putting on the chicken; sprinkle it from up high, so that it falls like snow. Season liberally with fresh-ground pepper.

3. Preheat the oven to 375°F, put all the vegetables and herbs together in the bottom of a large, heavy ovenproof pot, and season with salt and pepper. Set the chicken on top, dot with the butter, and roast uncovered for 45 to 60 minutes (or longer), depending on the size of the chicken. It is done when the leg joint is pierced with a knife and the juices run clear, not pink.

4. Let the chicken rest for a few minutes before carving, and serve family-style with all of the caramelized vegetables and juices from the pot on a platter and the chicken pieces on top.

Cook the Book: Thomas Keller’s One-Pot Roast Chicken
Caroline Russock
Tue, 20 Apr 2010 17:10:00 GMT

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Updated. Originally posted in 2006.

This cashew chicken recipe is one of my favorites on the site, and not just because it hails from my friend Marc Canter who I don’t see nearly enough. I first posted it several years ago after a raucous and memorable dinner that Marc prepared, accompanied by his wife Lisa and their kids Mimi and Lucy (any dinner with little kids tends to be raucous and memorable, don’t you agree?) Marc had been serenading me with stories of his famous cashew chicken, his trademark dish, tested and perfected over decades of crashing at the homes of old and new friends in exchange for his cooking. One of the things I like so much about Marc’s cashew chicken is that it is a good base recipe from which one can easily expand. Several people suggested the addition of some ginger and onion greens, which I agree works well and I’ve added in this updated version as an option. I’ve also enjoyed it with some fresh chopped pineapple thrown in, giving it some sweetness. Others have added vegetables such as broccoli or snow peas. Note that the amounts are all approximate. Marc doesn’t really measure; like most natural cooks I know, he "eyeballs" it. But with these ingredients, in approximately the right proportions, it’s hard to go wrong.

Marc’s Cashew Chicken

You can whip this up pretty quickly if you first start with the marinade, then chop the vegetables and cook the cashews while the chicken is marinating. By the way, several people have suggested toasting the cashews in lieu of boiling them. I think that’s a great idea; it will bring out even more flavor and the cashews will be crunchy. To toast them, heat a skillet on medium high heat, add the cashews, stir until lightly browned.

Ingredients

• 4 skinless, boneless, chicken breasts (about 1 1/2 to 1 3/4 pounds total), cut into 1-inch cubes
• Peanut oil (about 3/4 cup, can substitute other vegetable oil)
• Chili Powder (about 3 Tbsp)
• Tamari (about 1/2 cup) (if you don’t have access to tamari you can substitute soy sauce, use Wheat-free tamari or soy sauce if you need to cook gluten-free)
• Honey (about 1/2 cup)
• 2 cups raw cashews
• Salt
• 3 cups roughly chopped onions (about 2 medium large onions)
• 3 cups roughly chopped mushrooms

Optional

• 1-2 teaspoons minced fresh ginger
• 1/4 cup chopped green onion greens

Method

1 Marinate the chicken. Place the cubed chicken in a medium bowl. Add the oil. Add the tamari until the marinade turns dark brown (about 2 Tbsp per breast). Sprinkle the chili powder over the chicken pieces while stirring, so that each piece of chicken gets well coated with the chili powder and marinade. Stir in the honey, about 2 tablespoons for each breast. Add chopped ginger if using. Marinate for 1/2 hour to several hours, the longer the better.

2 Place cashews in a saucepan, cover with water, add a teaspoon of salt. Bring the water to a boil and simmer until the cashews are soft, a couple of minutes (the water will get foamy). Remove from the heat, strain and set aside.

3 Heat a large skillet on medium high heat. Working in batches if needed so you don’t crowd the pan, use tongs to remove the chicken pieces from the marinade and place them in the pan, reserving the extra marinade. Sauté the chicken pieces until just cooked through, remove from the pan and set aside. Place any extra marinade back in the pan and simmer for several minutes (to kill any bacteria). Pour off all but 1 Tbsp of the marinade into a separate bowl and reserve.

4 In the same pan, sauté the onions on medium high to high heat for several minutes. Add mushrooms and continue to sauté until onions are translucent and mushrooms are cooked, several minutes more. Add some reserved marinade to the pan if necessary.

5 Combine chicken, mushrooms, onions, with the cashews. Stir in onion greens (if using) right before serving. Serve over rice.

Serves 4-6.

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The recipe is pretty simple. It took me about 15 minutes to prepare and an hour to let the flavors blend together.

• 3 large tomatoes, diced small
• 1/2 cup tomato juice
• 1 small jalapeno, minced
• 1 small red onion, diced small
• 1 medium garlic clove, minced
• 1/2 cup chopped cilantro
• 1/2 cup fresh lime juice, about 6 limes

It was no surprise that both my wife and son really liked this. The recipe lasted two days. I should of taken a picture of the salsa. My wife and son had cleaned it out before I got home. I think it is the cilantro and lime juice that makes this recipe stand head and shoulders above the store bought brands.

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My best tip on the press pot has to do with clean up. Getting the grounds out of the pot after you have poured your cup of coffee can be a problem. I typically have about two ounces of coffee remaining in the bottom of my pot. If you try to pour them out you will leave a lot of grinds in the pot. I found that if I gave the pot a big swirl, I could put almost all of the coffee grinds back into suspension and pour most of them out.

Press Pots: Coffee Worth the Effort – The Atlantic Food Channel

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Tortillas and toppings.

Serve with soft flour tortillas, a spoonful of the veggies if you used them (lift them with a slotted spoon to drain out excess liquid), and your favorite toppings. Try any combination of lettuce, sour cream, shredded cheese, and tomatoes.

How to Make Crockpot Chicken Tacos: 6 steps (with pictures) – wikiHow

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Adding the Crash Hot Potatoes was an easy decision, too. This is a twice baked potato that looked easy to fix. The Summer Vegetable Gratin took me about two hours to prepare and will probably restrict this dish to the weekends. The Crash Hot Potato recipe was very simple and could easily be used on the weekdays. I just had to try it.

The final item was a pan seared chicken breast and I had a dinner that overcame even my most reluctant eater, my son.

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Refried beans should not be eaten cold.

There, I’ve said it. I don’t usually put my foot down about food preferences, but cold refried beans are about as appealing as a cold hamburger. This is why I make 7-layer dip starting with a layer of hot refried beans. Shredded cheese is added directly to the top of the beans so it melts from the heat of the beans. Then the layers of tomato, avocado, olives, and chilies, onions (mostly room temp) are added. The only cold part of the dip is the topping of sour cream (or crema Mexicana). Served this way and the taste delightfully mimics tostadas or homemade nachos, but in an easy-to-serve dip form.

By the way, depending on what you have on hand, your 7-layer dip may have 8 or 9 layers, or 6. The basics are refried beans, grated cheese, avocados (or guacamole), chilies (or salsa), sour cream, and olives. Improvise with more or fewer toppings to your own taste.

 

• 2 cups of refried beans, either from one 15-ounce can or homemade
• 1 teaspoon (or more) of bacon fat (or 1 strip of bacon, cooked and minced) optional
• 1 teaspoon of chipotle powder, Tabasco chipotle sauce, or adobo sauce, more to taste (or plain chili powder to taste)
• 1/4 to 1/2 teaspoon ground cumin
• Salt
• 1 cup shredded cheddar or Monterey Jack cheese
• 1/4 cup chopped green Anaheim chiles (canned) OR a Tbsp of chopped pickled jalapenos (more to taste)
• 1 avocado, peeled and chopped
• 1 hot house tomato, cut in half horizontally, seeds and juice gently squeezed out and discarded, chopped
• 1/3 cup of sour cream, or if you can get it Crema Mexicana (Mexican sour cream)
• 1/2 small can of sliced ripe black olives

1 Heat the refried beans in a medium sauté pan or cast iron skillet. Stir in enough water to get a creamy, easily dip-able consistency, about 1/4 of a cup. The taste of refried beans is greatly enhanced by bacon fat; we’ll add a teaspoon to canned beans or a tablespoon or more to taste if we are making the beans from scratch. If you don’t have bacon fat, you can cook up a strip of bacon, chop it up fine and add that to the beans. If you are trying to avoid pork, note that most canned refried beans are made with added lard, so check the ingredients. You can use olive oil instead, to help the consistency of the beans.

Mix in the chipotle chili powder (or Tabasco, or adobo, or regular chili powder) and cumin to taste. Note that the avocados and the sour cream will cool down the spiciness of the beans considerably, so you can afford to be a bit more spicy than you might think. Stir in salt to taste, depending on how salted your refried beans are to begin with, and depending on how salty the tortilla chips are that you are serving with the dip.

2 Once the beans are hot and bubbly, spread them over the bottom of a serving dish. Immediately add the shredded cheese so that the heat from the beans helps melt the cheese. (The cheese doesn’t need to be completely melted, but even if it is just a little, it will help the dip stay on the chip.)

3 Layer on the chopped green chilies, chopped avocado, chopped tomato. Spoon on the sour cream (or crema Mexicana, crema fresca, or even cream fraiche). Top with sliced green onions and olives.

Serve immediately with tortilla chips.

Serves 8.

7 Layer Bean Dip
Elise
Sun, 20 Jan 2008 08:42:59 GMT

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INGREDIENTS

• 1 to 2 scoops vanilla whey powder
• 1 cup strawberries
• Banana
• 1 cup ice
• 1 cup water (substitute milk or yogurt for a thicker, higher calorie drink)

First add ice to blender. Then add strawberries, banana, protein powder and water (or milk or yogurt). Blend all the ingredients until everything has dissolved. This will fill you up faster than you would think! If there is some left over, take it in a “to go” cup or pass it on to a friend or family member.

Protein Fruit Smoothie

My son has started wrestling season and I have decided to help him have a consistently healthy breakfast. A couple of weeks ago his idea of a fast breakfast was a pop tart. I decided a protein smoothie is a much better idea. The key to a great smoothie is great fruit. I found a bag of frozen fruit for smoothie in the frozen food section of the local Kroger that looked interesting. Amazingly the fruit looks great! I decided to substitute a half cup of milk, a quarter cup of low fat yogurt, and a dash of water for the water. If the smoothie is not sweet enough, add more fruit. I guess it is no surprise that my son likes it.

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