Tuesday, June 23, 2009

Cooking Fun!

Ok, so, I also decided, that this may be in part a food blog, as I discover and start to make, more interesting foods.

Tonight's recipes were:
1. Black Bean and Corn Salad
2. Chicken Stew


First up is the Black Bean and Corn Salad:
I got the idea after having some black bean and corn salad at a little buffet lunch I had with Jess Deng about a week ago. I also realized that this is not a bad way to get a good healthy amount of fiber, and to eat beans, which I usually don't like to do. I searched online for some recipes and ended up combining a couple of ideas, and then improvising with whatever materials that I had.
Ingredients:
1 Can of Black Beans
about 3/4 a bag of frozen sweet corn
1 tomato (I had an extra half of a plum tomato and then half a hothouse tomato, but I feel like 1 tomato on a vine or one hothouse tomato will be good. tho I think plum tomatoes are the sweetest)
1 avocado
A couple handfuls of cilantro
Seasoning:
a pinch of ground cumin
salt and pepper to taste
lemon juice
a splash of olive oil

The cool thing is, is that you don't have to do anything with the frozen corn. just pour it into the mixture with all the ingredients, and let it slowly defrost, and it cools the whole salad really quickly. (picked this up from Rachael Ray's recipe)

Second up is the Chicken Stew:


This one I basically pulled from this Food Network recipe. I recently have had a craving for soups and realized I've never really experimented in making my own soups. So this is the first one that I thought I could try. I basically followed everything in the recipe, except I used just plain chicken breasts (no bone), added about a cup and a half of fresh spinach at the end, and used dry basil leaves and dry thyme. I also used a whole 32 oz box of chicken broth to make things a little more soupy and to account for the extra vegetables that I was chopping into it. I also used a large sweet onion as opposed to a small one, and I feel like the carrot and onion really make the whole soup very very sweet, but the basil and the thyme add a nice herb-y taste and smell. I definitely wanted a more vegetable, natural taste, so i only did small pinches of salt and pepper, and extra vegetables.

Conclusions: SO GOOD!!!
I think next time I'm going to crush the cilantro for the black bean salad more (rip it into smaller pieces) and use a little less of it, just because getting a big bite of a cilantro leaf is a little more bitter than I would like. Adding the avocado was a great idea and definitely puts a more Southwestern feel to the whole thing. I think also, usually this kind of salad has chopped red onion in it, but i'm not a big fan, so I skipped that.

The recipe for the stew calls for serving with crusty bread, but I'm going to add some rainbow rotini instead for lunch tomorrow.

Yay! So I don't "just" ponder society and health and such. Haha.

Ok now back to more prelim reading...oh boy...

3 comments:

AB said...

Go for a bit of red onion. Like cilantro, it brings something to the table in moderation. Chop your cilantro, too. Otherwise, that all looks wonderful!

Unknown said...

You can come cook me dinner anytime!!

devika! said...

DUDE, look so healthy and delicious. I now feel guilty about eating that Wendy's Baconator for dinner.

Mayhaps I will try a few of your recipes!!!

<3 you.