Bacon Black Beans and Heirloom Tomato & Tilapia Ceviche

Happy Sunday!

We had a lot to do today – a lot of football to watch, and I had a movie date with my mom (GO SEE INTERSTELLAR!) So, I wanted something pretty easy time-wise. I don’t know about you guys, but I hate going into the work week on a subpar meal. Sunday nights have traditionally been about big, fun dinners in my family. Too often the “quick” meals aren’t that great and leave a lot to be desired. I really wanted to find a recipe that would enable me to spend little time cooking and still create a great meal the end the week on. So, what’s a girl to do? Turn to her crock pot, of course! I had a bag of black beans calling my name, some bacon to use up, and a craving for tacos. And thus, a meal was born.

Up first- Crock Pot Bacon Black Beans

^^ What You’ll Need.

Ingredients

• Black Beans – uncooked (i.e., not canned)  – not pictured.
• Bacon – not pictured.
• Onion – I used yellow, but white would also work.
• Garlic
• Cilantro – fresh if possible.
• Basil – I used dried.
• Salt
• Pepper
• Cumin
• Sugar
• Red Pepper or Red Pepper Flakes
• White Wine Vinegar

Step One-  The beans have to soak. There is a “fast soak” option, but I’ve found they taste best when soaked overnight. It will take some planning to accomplish this, so if you don’t have time, go with the fast soak.

Step Two- After beans have soaked in water in the fridge overnight, place them in the crock pot. (Do not pour the water out, pour beans and water together into the crock pot.) The bag will indicate the beans should be drained, but the directions on the bag are for cooking the beans on the stove. The water is needed in the crock pot so that the beans do not burn.

Step Three- Add the remainder of the ingredients to the crock pot. Dice both the garlic and the onion. Add only the leaves of the cilantro – I used 5 stems worth. Use minimal salt and sugar.

Step Four- Cut up bacon into bite sized pieces. I used 4 strips of bacon. Add to the of the crock pot. Stir all ingredients.

Step Five- Cook on high for several hours. Check in on the beans occasionally to stir and check the status of the water. The beans will be ready when the water is fully absorbed and the bacon is cooked. You can check periodically by tasting one of the beans to see if it’s softened. I turned the crock pot on around 12:30pm and cooked on high until 6:00pm. When the beans are soft, turn the crock pot to warm.

I knew I wanted to make the black beans, but I wasn’t sure what I wanted to serve them with. This week our CSA gifted up with some fresh cilantro, more Persian limes and I had some heirloom tomatoes.I also had some tilapia in the freezer. I wanted to make ceviche but didn’t get my act together to have it “marinate” for several hours. So I decided to make “fast ceviche”… I hope you like it.

^^ What You’ll Need

Ingredients:

• Garlic
• Onion (white or yellow)
• Scallions – not pictured
• Lime
• Lemon
• Tomatoes
• Pepper
• Salt
• Pepper
• Red Pepper
• Cilantro – fresh is best.

What’s really exciting to me about the above list and photo is that the limes, cilantro and pepper are from our CSA, the garlic is fresh and gifted from a friend, the lemon and the scallions were grown in our back yard and the tomatoes are locally grown here in San Diego. It’s awesome that we live in a place that not only a) gives us these awesome ingredients but b) allows us to have them freshly harvested in the middle of November.

Let’s get started!

Step One – Dice the onions, garlic, pepper, cilantro, and tomatoes and place into a bowl.

Step Two- Squeeze half a lime and half a lemon into the bowl, watch for seeds. Add the salt, pepper and red pepper. Mix well. Taste and add seasonings accordingly.

Step Three – Place in fridge to “percolate” while you cook the fish.

Now, let’s cook the fish.

Step One – Use a paper towel to pat dry the fish.

Step Two – Add some seasonings or a rub. In the past I’ve used more lime juice or more lemon juice and various spices on the fish. When I’ve done that, however, my boyfriend has said that the fish became too lime-y or too lemon-y. Tilapia is known to take on the taste of whatever you cook it in, so don’t overload on whatever the seasonings are. Knowing I had lime and lemon juices already in the meal and I would top it with additional juices later, I opted to use a rub of salt, pepper, cumin and paprika on the fish.

Step Three – Heat olive oil in a large pan over medium heat. When the oil is warm add the fish. If the fish is defrosted it should not require more than 3- 5 minutes per side. I like to flip it more than once, cooking one side 2 minutes, flipping it and cooking the other side 2 minutes and then repeating. As you cook, the fish may break apart and that’s okay because we will ultimately be flaking the fish apart.

Step Four- When the fish is cooked, remove it from the heat and place into a medium sized bowl.

Step Five- Using a fork, flake the fish into little pieces.

Step Six – Remove bowl with the tomato/cilantro mixture from the fridge and add the fish to it. Mix well until all ingredients are distributed evenly. Taste an add seasons accordingly. (I added some extra cilantro, lime juice and red pepper.)

— Now it’s time to put everything together! —

I served the “ceviche” atop corn tostada shells and the beans with a side of Spanish rice.

YUM YUM YUM

This was an amazing success! My boyfriend LOVED it. He rated it a 9 on a scale of 1 to 10 .. 1 being his personal Hell and 10 being Paradise.

Served it up with a nice gin and tonic (using the same lime from the meal.)

Final Tally:

Farm Fresh Ingredients – # 7

Store Bought Ingredients – #4

Happy Eating!

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Moroccan Meatballs and Orzo.

TGIF! Happy Friday, happy weekend.

Today is an adventure in crock pot cooking. I love crock pots. Whoever created the crock pot is one of my personal heroes. Okay, maybe that’s going too far, but really, crock pots are amazing. I love that you can literally throw a bunch of ingredients in one, turn it on, and walk away for hours, and come back to find dinner made! It’s such an easy way to make good meals on a work day or busy weekend. I’ll be featuring many a crock pot recipe throughout the life of this blog.

Hope you guys enjoy this one:

What you’ll need ^^

• Meatballs (not pictured)
• Scallions
• Yellow Onion
• Parsley
• Green Pepper
• Garlic
• Coriander
• Paprika
• Cumin
• Turmeric
• Olive Oil
• Flour
• Tomato Paste
• Flour
• Cinnamon
• Nutmeg
• Orzo ( not pictured.)

A couple of things to note:

1. The recipe I based this off of called for saffron. Unfortunately, we did not have any in the house and I did not have the car today, so alas, I made the meal without it. The meal ended up tasting great, but I could for sure see how the saffron would add to the overall taste.

2. The recipe also called for tomato paste, but I did not have that either! What I did have was an open jar of pizza sauce. Sometimes you just gotta make substitutions 🙂

3. I ended up not using the flour. The recipe called for it to thicken the sauce as needed, but the good old crock pot did the trick and I didn’t need it.

Let’s get started!

If you want to be a total badass, you’d make your own meatballs. That would, however, defeat the purpose of a low maintenance meal. So, instead, I used store bought meatballs from Costco.

Step One- Combine all ingredients (except for the orzo) in crock pot. Turn on high. Walk away for several hours!

Just judge based on your knowledge of spices. Do not put in too much of the spicier ones (i.e. the red pepper, the paprika, or the green pepper.) Be more generous with the sweeter ones to even out the tastes (i.e. the cinnamon, the nutmeg and the tomato paste.) Add only a minor amount of salt and pepper to the mixture. You can taste the sauce as it cooks and add spices accordingly.

A few notes –

I put the meatballs in frozen and there were no issues with them being fully thawed/hot by dinner time.

I used the powdered chicken broth and thus I added water to make the sauce. If you have liquid chicken broth I do not think you’ll need additional water.

I turned my crock pot on high at 5pm. The meatballs were ready by 7pm.

Step Two- When the meatballs are ready, turn the crock pot to warm.

Step Three- Cook the orzo – I really don’t think this needs that much explanation.

Step Four- When the orzo is ready, fill the bottom of the bowl with a few spoonfuls of orzo. Don’t serve too much orzo per person, the meatballs are filling and the extra carbs can be overload. (I think this would have tasted better of served atop couscous and I would recommend trying that in place of the orzo if you have it on hand.)

Step Five- Remove the meatballs from the crock pot with a slotted spoon, allowing the sauce to drain off back into the crock pot.

Step Six- Spoon a few spoonfuls of sauce on top of the Orzo. Then add the meatballs atop.

Step Seven- Top the meatballs with lime and cheese. I used gorgonzola because that’s what I had on hand, but I would recommend using either feta or goat cheese.

ENJOY !!

Start to finish, this entire meal took 2 and 1/2 hours, but only 30 actual minutes of work!

Final Tally – 5 Farm Fresh Ingredients and 5 Store Bought Ingredients.

Persian lime / parsley / rosemary pan seared Pork Chops AND Brown sugar / cinnamon /nutmeg / agave Brussels Sprouts.

HAPPY FRIDAY!

Yes, yes, I realize it’s only Thursday but I am off work tomorrow so it’s Friday to me! 🙂

So this week our CSA gifted us Persian limes. … Persian limes are slightly sweeter than key limes and with the aroma of Tahiti limes. I was stoked and knew they had to make it into a sauce or marinade for some meat. I also had fresh rosemary, parsley, and garlic. So I hopped on over to the Googles and found a recipe for cilantro lime pork chops and thought…. let’s see if we can’t change this to fit our ingredients.

Here is the recipe!

http://www.epicurious.com/recipes/food/views/Grilled-Pork-Chops-with-Garlic-Lime-Sauce-238938

Here’s how I changed it up:

Pork Chop Sauce Ingredients ^^

• 2 limes (Persian or otherwise.)
• garlic
• salt
• pepper
• cumin
• red pepper or red pepper flakes
• parsley
• rosemary
• olive oil (not pictured.)

Directions:

Step One – Chop parsley and garlic. Separate into 2 equal piles.

Step Two – In a bowl juice both limes. Save lime skins/peels.

Step Three – In same bowl add the cumin, salt, pepper, red pepper and whisk until mixed.

Step Four – Add olive oil. Whisk until combined.

Step Five – Add 1/2 the parsley and garlic into the sauce. Set sauce aside.

Step Six – In a pan place the remainder of the garlic and parsley and add olive oil. Do not heat yet.

Now take a break from the pork chops and prepare the brussels.

What you’ll need ^^

Ingredients

• Brussels Sprouts
• Brown Sugar
• Cinnamon
• Nutmeg
• Agave Syrup (or Honey.)

Step One – Cut Brussels sprouts into bite sized pieces.

Step Two – In a bowl combine brown sugar, cinnamon, nutmeg and agave.

Step Three – Mix in the Brussels sprouts pieces. Mix until the sugar/agave mixture is evenly distributed over the Brussels sprouts. NOTE – the Brussels sprouts won’t be coated. We will add more ingredients to the pan as the Brussels sprouts cook.

Step Four – In a separate pan heat 2 tsps coconut oil until melted. Add the Brussels sprouts mixture.

Step Five- Heat on low -> medium heat stirring occasionally so the sugars do not burn. As you cook the mixture will bubble and brown, but watch so that it does not burn.

Step Six- Add brown sugar to pan as needed.

As the Brussels sprouts slowly cook it’s time to return to your pork chops.

Step Seven- Be sure and use boneless pork chops for this recipe. It very well make work with bone in pork chops, but no guarantees 🙂 Remove pork chops and pat dry with paper towel.

Step Eight – Heat the oil, garlic, and parsley mixture on medium heat, do not burn the garlic.

Step Nine- Once garlic has begun to brown add sprigs of rosemary and increase heat to make the oil hot.

Step Ten – Rub the pork chops with salt and pepper.

Step Eleven – When the oil is hot, add the pork chops to the pan and the lime skins. Add a small portion of the sauce to the pan.

Step Twelve – Cook the pork chops on high, the oil will splatter so take caution. Cook the pork chops with the lime skins and rosemary sprigs on top and underneath so the flavors cook into the skin on both sides.

Step Thirteen – Now just cook the pork chops directly on the heat, searing the skins brown. Careful not to burn. Each side won’t need very long, these are thin and boneless, they will cook quickly.

(Make sure your stirring the Brussels sprouts occasionally.)

Step Fourteen- Remove from heat. Set aside on a dish. Top with the rosemary sprigs and lime slices. Top with sauce to garnish.

And VIOLA!

(served with mediterranean couscous and a glass of Torrrontes wine!)

Final Tally

Farm Fresh Ingredients – #4

Store Bought Ingredients – # 4

This was SOOOO good! My boyfriend loved it as well. Having a bit of pork chop, some parsley, a bit of couscous and some sugar of the brussels in one bite was amazing for the palate!

Happy Eating Folks!

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