Sweet & Spicy Southwestern Salad with Cilantro Dressing

Oh, hi blog!

Yeah, it's been several busy months with a lot of not-so-good eating. And no "forced" veggie consumption, 'cause we don't have the CSA every week. But I made a tasty salad tonight I wanted to remember for future meals...didn't even think to take a picture beforehand. It was kind of southwestern-ish with spicy black beans, sweet potato, corn, tomatoes, mango, green onions, spinach, peppers, avocado and a homemade cilantro dressing.

This made about 2 giant servings with about a cup of dressing. Went a little something like:

Cilantro Dressing:
- Whisk together a small container plain nonfat greek yogurt, a couple tablespoons olive oil, some vinegar & lime juice, salt, pepper and a small bunch of finely chopped cilantro. Thin with water if needed. A recipe I found said to make this in the blender; I didn't want to dirty mine!

Roasted Sweet Potatoes:
- Heat oven to 400. Cube 1 medium-size sweet potato, toss with a bit of olive oil, salt & chili powder (I like Penzey's Chili 9000). Roast on baking sheet until browned & tender, 15-20 mins if you cut it pretty small. Remove to a bowl.

Sauteed Corn:
- If your corn is tasty & fresh, you could also just cut it off the cob raw. Husk 3 ears of corn & slice off kernels. Heat a skillet over high heat, add a few drops of olive oil & some cumin seeds. Add corn & saute for a minute or two. I think I added some chili powder to this, too. Add to bowl with sweet potatoes.

Spicy Black Beans:
- Saute 1 clove minced garlic in a small bit of olive oil. Add 1 can black beans, rinsed & drained. Season with chili powder and add hot sauce to taste (I like plenty of Cholula Chili Lime). Stir a few times & set aside off heat.

Other stuff (add to bowl with sweet potatoes & corn):
- handful cherry tomatoes, halved (from our garden; yay!)
- diced bell pepper
- 3 green onions, chopped
- diced mango (GENIUS - I had Trader Joe's frozen mango chunks. Dice these up, throw 'em in the bowl, they thaw immediately)

Build the salad over a small bed of baby spinach: half of the black beans, half of the veggie mixture, half a cubed avocado. Crush a small handful of tortilla chips over the top and drizzle with dressing.

Sounds a little bit involved but it was SO GOOD and pretty healthy!

Curried Lentils with Sweet Potatoes & Spinach

Very modifiable. Use different spices, different greens, make it more soupy...

This made a giant pot. If you want a smaller pot, use half the package of lentils and decrease quantities slightly.

2 onions, chopped
4 garlic cloves, minced
small knob ginger, minced
1 jalapeno pepper, minced
2 tsp each garam masala & curry powder
1 tsp each cumin & coriander
2 Tbl. tomato paste
1 can diced tomatoes
2 large sweet potatoes, cut into small cubes
1 box vegetable or chicken stock
1 bag dried lentils, washed (brown or green)
few handfuls baby spinach leaves
1/2 can coconut milk
small bunch cilantro, chopped
splash lemon/lime juice
hot sauce


- Saute onions until translucent.
- Add garlic, ginger, jalapeno and spices, cook 1 minute. Add tomato paste & cook another minute.
- Add tomatoes, sweet potatoes, stock & lentils. You will likely have to add more water to cover.
- Cover & cook on low about 40 minutes or until lentils are tender. Add water if necessary.
- Stir in spinach until wilted.
- Add coconut milk, cilantro, lime juice & hot sauce. Taste for salt - mine didn't need much.

Serve over brown rice, or as-is, or top with a poached/over-easy egg.

Cheater Soft Pretzel Bites

On the theory that "dough is dough," I thought I would try making soft pretzel bites out of frozen pizza dough that I had hanging around. I've made pretzel bites once before from scratch, and they were delicious. I'm not crafty enough to be good at shaping dough, so the bites are much easier.

I also have amassed a collection of gourmet salts, so I figured this would be a good opportunity to use those. Hence:

Pink sea salt, Hawaiian black lava salt, and smoked applewood salt.

The verdict:

Considering that these cost about $1 to make (I used half a package of frozen pizza dough that cost $1.99), and for minimal effort I can have fresh, hot soft pretzels...I approve. The dough probably wasn't as great-tasting as scratch-made, but...whatever. I also wish I could get that deep dark brown that "real pretzels" have, but I think you have to boil them in lye to get that. Eeek!! Now--could I taste the difference between the salts? Not particularly. But I think the black salt won at least on texture...nicely crunchy.


Cheater Soft Pretzel Bites

Frozen pizza dough, thawed (1/2 of the package I bought made around 50 bites)
3/4 cup baking soda
1 egg
Coarse salt

- Shape the thawed dough into a thin rope. Cut into 1-inch pieces.
- Boil a large pot of water & add baking soda.
- Drop in the dough pieces (in batches); boil for about 30 seconds. With a slotted spoon, remove to parchment-lined sheet pans.
- Preheat oven to 425. Beat egg with 1 Tbl water.
- Brush bites with egg wash & sprinkle with salt.
- Bake for 12-15 minutes, until deep golden brown.

Serve with honey mustard for dipping. Next time I might try a cheese sauce too.

Beef Stew à la Khan

So far this winter, the weather forecasters in the DC metro region have been...over-forecasting. We've had at least two snowstorms predicted that barely amounted to anything. And now we're actually getting winter storms named, which is kind of fun. We've already had "Gandolph" and today, we had the arrival of "Khan!" KHAAAAANNN!

Khan gave us maybe an inch of snow, nothing major. But with the whole day off today I thought I'd make a grocery run before the madness hit, as I had a beef stew craving. So I named this...

Beef Stew à la Khan

- Season 1 package of cubed beef stew meat with salt & pepper, & toss in flour to coat.

- Sear beef in a dutch oven in bacon fat (or oil) until browned; remove to a bowl.

- Add 1 package button mushrooms, halved, to pan (add more oil if necessary). Cook over med-high heat til brown; remove to a separate bowl.

- Chop 1-2 onions roughly & add to pan  (with more oil if necessary). Cook until softened & browned. Add 2 chopped garlic cloves & stir briefly.

- Deglaze pan with 1/2 bottle beer (I used Shock Top IPA); scrape up browned bits with spoon. 

- Add 2 Tbl. tomato paste & cook about a minute.

- Add beef back to pan. Pour in about 1/2 box beef stock/broth. I had a few leftover roasted garlic cloves so I mashed them & added them to pan. Also added 2 bay leaves & some smoked paprika.

- Cover and simmer on low heat about 1 hr.

- Meanwhile, peel 3 carrots, cut in half and then into 1-inch pieces.

- I also remembered I had an acorn squash leftover from one of our last CSA weeks, like...3 months ago!! Still seemed fine, so I peeled & chopped that.

- Add carrots, squash & reserved mushrooms to pot & more beef broth to cover. Simmer for 1 more hour.

- If you want to thicken the stew, stir some beef broth into a tsp or two of flour & add this to the pot.

- Taste & add seasonings. I added splashes of red wine vinegar, Worcestershire sauce & hot sauce.

Serve over mashed potatoes (I made mine with cream cheese & scallions) and enjoy...preferably while watching Star Trek II!