Brazilian Black Bean Crockpot Dish

I had a revelation recently about cooking. I love love love love to crock pot cook, but I am always out much longer than the time it takes the dishes to cook! So my big revelation was "Why don't I crock pot cook at night?" I make the recipes the night before and by the time I get my 8-10 hours (Seriously. I require this) a night in, I have dinner made!

I've been dying to try this Brazilian Black Bean dish from one of my favorite websites- sparkrecipes.com- and thought this would be as good a time as any to try it. 

I thought this was a good recipe, but I served it over romaine with avocados. The next day, I brought premade portions of it over brown rice with cheese, tomatoes and sour cream for my friends at work (because this recipe already gave me literally 5 tupperwares full, which are already in my freezer!), which I liked much better. Next time, I think I'll serve this as a black bean quesadilla filling.  

Black beans are on Guinea Pig's "I hate" list, so he doesn't get to rate this, but my coworker Heidi loved it!

Here's the recipe:

Ingredients

16 oz. dry black beans

1 Green Pepper, chopped

1 onion, chopped

1 ham steak, cubed (the original recipe called for two chicken breasts, but I had none on hand and no desire to run out to grab them!)

2 cans of chicken broth (I also added 1 can of water)

Salt, pepper, and red pepper flakes to taste

Directions

Soak the dry beans for 24 hours in pan with enough water to cover the beans.

When you’re ready to assemble the recipe, drain the beans and put them in the crock pot. Then add the chicken broth plus one can of water, the pepper, onion, ham and seasonings. (I saw that some people added chilies to this to up the heat factor, but I didn’t.)

Cook on high for 8-10 hours.

That’s it! Then (and here’s the fun part), find your favorite way to try it! I loved the “rice and beans” variation, but pay around or feel free to borrow some of my ideas.

Recipe submitted by SparkPeople user DCMUM61.

Adapted from: http://recipes.sparkpeople.com/recipe-detail.asp?recipe=420632

Chimichurri Scallops

Guinea Pig got a new job a few weeks and to celebrate, I decided to take him out to a little South American restaurant around the corner from his house called Cucharamama. I actually got a pasta dish (I wasn’t feeling very adventurous), but he got a wood-burning oven cooked steak with chimichurri sauce that he loved.

The first Friday after he started, we had both had very, very, very long weeks. I wanted to make something delicious and comforting to signify the end of the week, but it was Friday during Lent so my pork tenderloin AND my flank steak ideas were out. I settled on scallops and roasted artichokes. (The artichoke steamed somehow rather than roasted and was a disappointment. L) I served the scallops with my attempt at chimichurri sauce and jasmine rice.

To be honest, scallops weird me out a little. They taste amazing when done right, but if you overcook them even a tiny bit, it’s like chewing a rubber band. So I was a little nervous. But they turned out well! The recipe earned me an 8.5 on the Guinea Pig scale!

For the chimichurri sauce:

Ingredients

6 cloves garlic

1 tsp. Kosher Salt

1 tsp. oregano, dry leaves

1 tsp. black pepper, ground

1 tsp. red pepper flakes

Finely grated lemon zest from 3 lemons

4 oz. fresh lemon juice

1 bunch flat leaf (Italian) parsley (Careful here! I missed some stems, which ended up in my chimichurri!)

3/4 cup olive oil

Directions

Combine the garlic, salt, oregano, peppers, lemon zest and lemon juice in a food processor and blend into a paste.

Add the Italian parsley and pulse chop until parsley is 1/8 inch in size.

At this point, remove all of the ingredients from the processor and add the olive oil. (I added it to the food processor and it emulsified a little too much!)

Play with the seasonings a bit (I ended up adding more lemon), and allow the sauce to marinate for 30 minutes before serving, but the longer the better.

Adapted from: http://www.bonefishgrill.com/behind-the-scenes/recipes/chimichurri-sauce/

For the scallops:

Ingredients

2 Tbsp each of butter and olive oil

1 lb. large bay scallops

Salt and pepper to taste

Directions

Pat dry the scallops and let them sit a bit before they are seared. Scallops sear best when they are completely dry.

Once dry, salt and pepper each side of the scallops and let them sit for maybe 5-10 minutes before you cook them.

In a hot, nonstick pan, melt I Tbsp each of the butter and oil (it helps the butter not burn). Then add half of the scallops and cook for about 2 minutes on each side, depending on how thick the scallops are. I like to flip the first side after about 2-3 minutes, and then know they are “done” when they are semi-firm when poked with a spatula.

Keep the first batch warm (I used an aluminum foil tent) while you cook the second batch the same way.

Top with the chimichurri sauce and serve!

The Perfect "Diet" Cake!

E: "I'm making a soda pop cake for tonight."
H: "What the heck is a soda pop cake? I want that!"
E: "Are you kidding me? You've never heard of soda pop cake? You have to try it! I have to put it on the blog!"

My friend had never heard of soda pop cake- can you believe it? Probably, because the more people I ask, the more people I realize have not heard about soda pop cake! It's the most simple cake (especially for people like yours truly who seriously CANNOT BAKE), and it's calorie friendly(ish). Most of the time, the people I serve it to don't even know it's diet-friendly. It tastes like a very light angel food cake version of your favorite boxed cake mix.

The recipe couldn't be more simple:

1 store-bought cake mix
1 can of diet soda (for white/light cake mixes, I use diet Sprite or Sprite Zero, and for chocolate cakes I use Diet Coke or Diet Dr. Pepper. I can't wait to experiment with diet cream soda and diet root beer!)

Mix, and pop it into an oven following the directions on the box. I usually stick to 350 for about 20 minutes; these cakes tend to bake up a little quicker because they have less fat weighing them down.

I serve mine with Cool Whip Free and fruit when I feel like being healthy and buttercream frosting when I don't feel like it!