Quick Black Bean Tortilla Soup

This recipe was adapted from a recipe in an Everyday Food Light cookbook that I own. It was quick and had lots of flavor. It would be good with a some shredded chicken and/or avocado added or a light salad on the side. We ate it by itself and found it very filling. I have a crock-pot recipe for a chicken tortilla soup, but this is so easy. I may not use the crock-pot version again.

Ingredients:

1T olive oil
4 garlic cloves, minced (you can never have too much garlic...ha)
1t chili powder
2 bay leaves*
1t cumin*
2 cans diced tomatoes with juice (14.5 oz. each)
14.5 oz. chicken broth (vegetable if you want this to vegetarian)
1 package (10 oz.) frozen corn
1c water
salt and pepper
1c crumbled tortilla chips
1 lime
a little shredded cheese...don't add too much if you want it to be healthy.

Directions:

1. In a large saucepan, heat oil over medium. Add garlic, chili powder and cumin. Stir until fragrant. Add tomatoes, beans, broth, corn, water and bay leaves. Season with salt and pepper.
2. Bring to boil, reduce to simmer. Add tortilla chips and cook until soft. Just a few minutes. Remove from heat, stir in juice from one lime and season to taste with salt and pepper. 
3. Remove bay leaves. Add a few more chips and some shredded cheese if desired. This would also be the time to add the avocado if you want. 

Roasted Green Beans with Lemon Zest and Fresh Garlic

I haven't forgotten about this blog. I'm just way too busy.

It's much easier for me to type out a recipe than hand write it in my recipe book. So this is where I store 'the good ones' until I get around to recording them.

Tonight, I made the best green beans I've ever eaten. It's not anything fancy or complicated.  I'm sure there are versions of this recipe floating around all over the Internet.

We ate the beans too fast for me to take a picture.
Here is what was left.

Ingredients:

• Frozen Green Beans (Fresh would have been better)
• 1 T (or so...)Olive Oil 
• 3 Cloves of Garlic, minced
• Zest from 1 Lemon
• Salt (to taste)

How to Cook:

• Preheat oven to 400 degrees
• Spread green beans evenly over baking sheet.
• drizzle olive oil over beans, try to get them all (you could toss the beans with the oil in a bowl before)
• sprinkle minced garlic, lemon zest and salt over the beans (as evenly as possible)
• Roast 30 min for frozen beans (a little less for fresh) 

Roasting vegetables is one of my new favorite ways to cook them. Just be careful and don't use too much olive oil. It is good for you, but it's high in calories.

The New Food 'Pyramid'

I realize that the new food pyramid is old news. But, I wanted to reflect on some things. I think my food blog is a good place to do this.

Eating is something you do roughly 3 times a day 365 days a year. You should know the proper way to eat. So why is it that I only vaguely remember learning about proper nutrition? I think we talked about it once in elementary school and then in high school when I elected to take a health course.

The new My Plate approach seems a lot easier to understand than a pyramid. I mean look at that image. If I have the proper size plate (not the huge 10-12" things most of us use) then I can design my plate exactly as it appears above and know that I'm getting a balanced meal. Simple.

Here are some things I've learned recently that (like My Plate) make eating healthy easier for my family.

• Carbs are NOT bad. I feel like I've believed carbohydrates (bread, pasta, rice, grains) were the enemy for WAY TOO long. In fact, you need them and you should be eating more grains and breads than meat. The kicker? You need to eat the right kind of carbohydrates. Things like beans, whole grain breads and brown rice. 

• You need a lot more vegetables than you are probably eating. Don't like vegetables? I didn't either until I started forcing myself to try new things and cooking with fresh ingredients. You can also try adding a romaine leaf (iceberg doesn't count) salad to every meal...it's a start. 

• Protein doesn't have to come from meat. It's ok to leave meat out of a meal. Try replacing one meal a week with a vegetarian menu. It will help you get more veggies and force you to try something new occasionally. 

• STAY AWAY from processed foods. If it comes in a box, it's probably not very good for you. The food companies are trying to make money off of you. Health food is popular right now. Of course the food companies are going to market their food as healthy! They can throw a little extra iron in their cereal and say it's iron fortified...they conveniently forgot to mention that they added a whole extra cup of sugar to the cereal in the process. The only way you know exactly what you are eating is if you have control of all the ingredients...I'm not going to get into organic ingredients right now. (Which by the way, I do not buy organic...at least not yet.)

• You don't have to eat perfect all the time. Follow the 80/20 rule. Eat good 80% of the time and you can live a little the other 20%. Just be careful because 20% can evolve into 30% and it can make a big difference.

• Small changes. Drink some more water this week. Next week buy apples instead of chips. You get the idea?

Edamame Salad

I found this recipe at Shape Magazine's website. It was in a feature for summer salads with 5 ingredients each. Can't beat 5 ingredients. It makes things super fast, easy and cheap!

I adapted the recipe a little since I am trying to like tomatoes but still haven't succeeded.

I really don't have a use for corn. I think it's just a low-calorie filler. I have been using it for that reason, though. It's much lower in calories than the edamame in this recipe. Plus, it adds some color and it does taste good.

Edamame Salad

1 bag of shelled edamame
1bag frozen corn
1/2 avocado
1 lime
1Tbs. olive oil
pepper to taste

Mix olive oil and lime juice by whisking. Add pepper to taste.

Boil the edamame and corn according to directions (about 3 minutes). Once done, immediately cool edamame and corn combo in cold water.

Pour lime/olive oil dressing over edamame and corn. Peel, pit and dice the avocado half and mix with the edamame and corn.

I put the salad in the fridge for a few minutes to make sure it was nice and cold. After all, it's 105 degrees here.

Eat. Yummmmm.

Chickpea and Cucumber Salad

This is a quick lunch salad to beat the heat. I found the recipe on the back of a can of Goya Chickpeas and adapted it to use ingredients that I actually had.

1 can of Goya chickpeas (drained and rinsed)
1 bell pepper
3 cloves of garlic, minced (I use the cheese grater as a cheat)
1/2 of a cucumber
1 teaspoon of olive oil
2 teaspoons of light balsamic vinaigrette
a little oregano

Chop the veggies the way you prefer. Throw everything in a bowl and mix it all up. Put in the fridge to chill and you have a yummy, cold, summer salad.

I had a side whole wheat couscous with mine, too.

The Best Tacos You've EVER Eaten.

That statement's true if you've never had Torchy's Tacos. Those are, in fact, the best tacos in the world. No contest.

But, these are a close second to Torchy's. Now, all you tofu snobs, don't panic. This is a tofu recipe and it was my first attempt at cooking with tofu (I've eaten it before). I can tell you with 99% certainty that you will like this taco. But, if you insist on not trying tofu then you can substitute chicken or (even better) fish. 

Here is the recipe. I followed this recipe exactly.

In my opinion, this is the best veggie recipe I've made. In Mark's opinion, it is a close second to a black bean burrito recipe that I'll post later.

This is tofu. The consistancy is similar to scrambled eggs.

Slaw for the tacos.

Yogurt dressing. Don't freak out...it makes the tacos. Promise!

Finished Product. I'm going to eat the leftovers from last night. Right Now.

Chickpea Patties

Told you I'm loving Chickpeas right now. I think I told you that. Who knows. This is another recipe from The Kind Life. You can find the recipe here. I left out the celery. The reason? I'm not a big fan of celery and I didn't want to buy a whole bunch when I only needed one stick. I don't think the recipe missed it. I certainly didn't.

These were really good. I'm not sure if I prefer these or the black bean patties. I guess it doesn't matter since they will both be making it into my cookbook as go-to meals.