Black Bean Chilaquile (Mexican-style casserole)

For some reason I am relatively comfortable in the kitchen if I am baking, but as soon as I have to cook it is suddenly terrifying. I never know how to cut anything or know when things are done cooking. The entire adventure is usually stressful and upsetting.

But not with this black bean chilaquile casserole. It is full of color and flavor while still being easy low key and easy to make (I didn’t have to go running for help once).

Ingredients:

1 cup chopped onion

1 tablespoon olive oil

1 cup chopped tomato (canned or fresh)

1 1/2 cups fresh corn or frozen

2 tablespoons fresh lime juice

1 teaspoon salt

1/2 teaspoon ground black pepper

14 ounce can of black beans

2 cups rinsed stemmed and chopped swiss chard or 2 cups spinach (I really like the swiss chard)

2 cups crushed baked tortilla chips (any kind of tortilla chip works, the recipe calls for baked because its supposed to be a low calorie dish)

8 ounces grated sharp cheddar cheese

2 cups prepared mexican-style salsa

Serves 4-6

Recipe from Moosewood Restaurant Low-Fat Favorites, or at Food.com (the calorie counter on food.com is way off according to the cookbook. If you use the ingredients called for in the cookbook and you make 4-6 servings out of the 8×8 pan (my family makes it into 6-8 servings) it should be 245 calories per serving.)

1. Preheat oven to 350°F

2. Crush tortilla chips and put half of them in the bottom of the 8×8 pan

3. Sauté (on medium heat) the onion in olive oil for 5-8 minutes, until translucent

4. Add in swiss chard or spinach, cook until they begin to turn a darker green and have shrunk down (about 3-5 minutes depending).

5. Add in tomatoes, corn, lime juice, black beans, salt and pepper. Continue to sauté for 5-10 minutes (until all of your ingredients are heated through)

6. Put the sauté vegetables onto the tortilla chip layer

7. Cover the veggies with half of the salsa. Add about 2/3 of the cheese.8. Put the rest of the tortilla chips on. Cover with the rest of the salsa and cheese.

9. Bake 35-40 minutes, until the cheese is bubbling and beginning to brown

I know this doesn’t look like much, but the flavor is amazing.

By Mandy | Tuesday, July 5, 2011
Posted In: Tasty Bites, Vegetarian

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30 day vegetarian challenge

This morning I found a video on GOOD’s 30 day vegetarian challenge and it got me thinking. I have been a vegetarian for about 5 years now, and maybe I should pledge to do something more for a month. Check out their video and see if it can inspire you to create a change in your next 30 days (or 27 : ) ) no matter how small.

I have recently started reading GOOD which is an interesting online format that “is the integrated media platform for people who want to live well and do good. We are a company and community for the people, business, and NGOs moving the world forward.” This morning I found a video on their 30 day vegetarian challenge.

The GOOD 30-Day Challenge: Go Vegetarian from GOOD.is on Vimeo.

What will you pledge for the rest of June? Comment below or let your world know through a Facebook status update what the rest of your June will look like.

By Mandy | Friday, June 3, 2011
Posted In: Sustainability, Vegetarian

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I Cooked! Spicy Sweet Potato Fries

I have been saying for quite a while now that I was going to learn to cook in order to be in more independent next year when I live in an apartment with my own kitchen as well as to be more sustainable and cook healthy meals out of local ingredients. I finally started!

Today I made spicy sweet potato fries for a snack as well as asparagus soup and buttermilk biscuits for dinner. I will share the fries first and the rest later in the week.

Ingredients:

2 medium sized sweet potatoes (each should be about 2 servings), cut into matchsticks

olive oil to lightly coat the cut potatoes

1/2 tsp each of paprika, cumin, chili powder, and black pepper

1/4 tsp each of garlic powder, onion powder, and salt

1/8 tsp cayenne pepper and cinnamon*

Organic and local are always best.

*if you do not like spicy foods or you are making these for children, you can leave out the cayenne pepper

These fries were super easy to make and much healthier than the battered and deep fried sweat potato fries found in most restaurants or frozen food isles. They also only take about 30-40 minutes depending on how quickly you can prep them.

Although I enjoyed eating this, I sadly struggled a bit to make them. I did not realize how difficult these oddly shaped sweet potatoes would be to peel, especially with their incredibly thick skin. Sometimes I would only get a few centimeters of skin off at a time. Once I got them peeled things went much better.

This recipe asked for the sweet potatoes to be coated in egg whites before being seasoned and baked, but that seemed a bit odd to me. In order to decide which would be best, I split the recipe in half and did half with the egg white and the other with a bit of olive oil (which is how my mom makes regular oven fries). Neither one was bad, but the olive oil had a better texture and cooked better. The ones coated in the white had a tendency to burn easier.

The ones with olive oil are on the left and egg white are on the right.

All in all these fries were a delicious snack, and they would have been even better if I had remembered to put in the chili powder : )

By Mandy | Saturday, April 23, 2011
Posted In: Tasty Bites, Vegetarian

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Low Carbon Diet

It’s no secret these days that animal products, including meat and dairy, have large carbon footprints in comparison to vegetables and other food products. However, what never ceases to amaze me is how much meat Americans consume. Americans have one of the highest rates of meat consumption in the world. It is not uncommon for many of us to eat meat with every meal.

Chart courtesy of American Prospect

This past week Santa Clara University’s dining commons, which are run by Bon Appetit Management Company, decided to do a low carbon diet day to help bring awareness to their future plans of decreasing meals with meat on Fridays. Oddly every single main dish or special had meat in it. What carbon calculator were they using?

Shockingly, if Americans went vegetarian for one day, the US would prevent 1.2 million tons of carbon emissions according the New York University Polytechnic Institute.

Decreasing our consumption of carbon heavy foods can massively affect our carbon emissions. Switching to a vegetarian diet can save more carbon emissions than driving a hybrid vehicle! A vegetarian diet saves 5040 pounds of CO2 per year and a hybrid saves 5000 pounds of CO2 per year according to PlanetGreen.com.

As Earth Day approaches I am not demanding all humans go vegan, or even vegetarian. Instead, I ask that we consider what we eat and take the challenge of reducing meat to one meal a day, meatless Mondays, meatless weekdays, meatless May, or meatless everyday.

By Mandy | Wednesday, April 20, 2011
Posted In: Sustainability, Tasty Bites, Vegan, Vegetarian

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Black Bean Chilaquile (Mexican-style casserole)

30 day vegetarian challenge

I Cooked! Spicy Sweet Potato Fries

Low Carbon Diet

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