Not so boring beans & rice

Zesty Rice & Bean casserole. This is a great (and cheap) recipe when you're not looking to work too hard and want something healthy and comforting. Basically, just take all the ingredients, stir them together and bake. I adapted it from this recipe and just added a bit more rice, corn, extra cumin, and diced jalapeno peppers. You could also substitute can tomatoes for salsa.

Saute in a skillet a chopped onion and some garlic. Add a chopped green pepper and as many chopped mushrooms as you'd like. Add 1/2 cup water and 1 cup rice and bring to a simmer. In a casserole dish, stir together 1 can diced tomatoes, 1 can beans (kidney or black), and a can of corn (or frozen). I also added some chili powder and a ton of cumin plus salt and pepper. Stir this together and then dump in the rice mixture from the skillet and stir the works together with 1/2 cup grated mozzarella cheese (skim if you prefer). Top the whole thing off with up to another 1/2 cup of cheese. Bake 15-20 mins.

For variations, add other veggies (maybe peas?) chicken, salsa or another type of cheese.

It was great and made for awesome leftovers and served with tortilla chips.

Enjoy!

Chilly weather chili

In anticipation of a snow day, I decided to make chili to have for supper and keep leftovers for a treat in case I got snowed in. Well, today ended up being a snow day so am I ever glad I had this tasty treat to tide me over! The chili was delish last night and even better today for lunch. Here's what I did (and why it's healthy):

Ingredients:
1 can crushed tomatoes (as low sodium as you can find)
1 can kidney beans (I used a can of Hunts chili style beans which had kidney and pinto beans)
1 can mushrooms
A whole lot of garlic (I mean at least 5 cloves)
.25-.5 lbs of ground meat (I used lean ground beef but you could use turkey, chicken, pork or veggie ground round....or leave it out all together, in which case I'd substitute chickpeas)
5tbs chli powder (ie. a good hand full)
1tbs dried chili flakes
1 tbs dried basil
salt & pepper to taste

What to do:
- Brown you meat in a skillet first until cooked through; add the chili powder and chili flakes to the meat and stir;
- In a large pot on medium, saute garlic until aromatic and browned. you can add chopped onions here if you'd like and/or chili;
- Then add your other ingredients in one at a time starting with the mushrooms, then the beans, and finally the tomatoes. You want to let each ingredient cook for a few minutes before adding the next one so you layer the flavours. Once the mixture is saucy from the tomatoes, you can add in the meat mixture;
- Once everything is simmering together, take a taste of the chili to see if it needs anything like salt, pepper, more chili powder or chili flakes.


I served this chili with very lightly warmed asparagus and some organic corn chips (Que Pasa brand) for dipping. For a treat, I put some shredded mozza on top but it's a President's Choice light cheese so not terrible for my diet.

This whole meal comes in at approximately 650 calories, 27g fat, and 32g protein (made with the lean ground beef) and is a welcomed and filling meal on a stormy day!

Taco night!

Every now and then we have taco night at our house. You can make tacos as plain or dressed up as you'd like. Last night we had beef tacos with refried beans, corn, and rice as sides. Typically, even if it's just myself and my boyfriend, we'll have a bunch of little bowls of this and that to use as taco toppings. The trouble is when it's just the two of us we'll often try to balance all these toppings while hovering over our coffee table watching TV. We're both adventurous eaters (and television fiends) and this causes a huge mess. More toppings land outside the taco than inside.

Last night, however, we invited some friends over, and were forced to sit at our dining room table like proper adults. We doubled up on the meat for the extra people , had hard and soft taco shells, and didn't feel so gluttonous for having 10 or more bowls of toppings on the table. Add some Mexican beer and good conversation and presto: Taco Night!

To have an easy and diverse taco night experience, simply choose your meat (or go veggie with beans), have a sidedish or two and stock up on the toppings. We had: lettuce, tomato, onions, sour cream, rasins (sounds odd but typically Mexican), salsa, pickled jalapeno peppers, Monteray Jack cheese, lime wedges to squeeze on the tacos and (my favorite topping) avocado. We had so many toppings I realized after everyone went home that I forgot to put out the hot sauce. No one seemed to notice.

Taco night is s a casual way to entertain and fairly cheap considering most of the stuff is in your pantry already. It can even be kind of healthy if you use lots of veggies and lean meats. Just supply plenty of napkins!