Monday, July 23, 2012

Hot Day Dinner with Pasta and Easy Variations


grilled peppers black bean and guac  sandwiches along with a bowl of super easy  Summer Pasta - Chop up a couple of good garden tomatoes, put in a bowl along with 8 oz fresh mozzarella cut into 1/2" cubes (or use "mozzarella pearls") and a handful of fresh basil leaves cut into ribbons. While the flavors soak in and blend, cook up a small batch of whole wheat rotini (or other favorite pasta) and drain, stir into other ingredients and serve.

This time I made the beans this way:
I had a margarine container of excess previously soaked beans in the freezer. I pulled them out and put them in a saucepan with 1/2 onion finely chopped, grated carrot, handful of slaw mix cabbage, plus two cups veggie broth, some Penzey's adobo seasoning, ground Ancho pepper, and cumin, plus a dash of lime juice. Simmer an hour or more and smash up if it hasn't gotten mushy on its own.

OR just open a can or two of seasoned black beans, rinse and drain and smash up.

We had some fruit to round it out - melon would have been best but we ate them all already.

My pizza-loving, anti-bean son ate these sandwiches and asked to finish the leftovers the next day -

Wednesday, July 4, 2012

Favorite Splurge Lunch

Just thought I'd share, even though it's not particularly cheap -- not too bad on healthy and fast, very chewy, delicious, and satisfying.

Take a ciabatta roll (that's the pricey part) cut in half (these are the big square kind) and cover with chopped real garden tomato. If you are feeding someone not into veg you can stir a crumbled pre-cooked bacon slice in and jump to the cheese. Otherwise, if you have it on hand, cover with ribboned spinach


 and sliced mushrooms, then lay on a deli slice of muenster cheese over each (cheapest at Aldi). Put in the toaster oven at 350 for ten minutes. YUM! Just as good as going out for pizza, in my book. With built-in portion control and no leaving the house in hot weather.