Kitchen Failure: Bean Thing

I figure I shouldn't just post my culinary successes; I should also post my failures. As an only averagely talented cook who usually doesn’t follow a recipe, I have many, many failures. Of course, I can’t post everything I cook that turns out terrible because, well, that would just be depressing and not very useful. So I'll only post those that are funny. Here is one:

Yesterday I decided to cook some sort of Mexican thing. This happens a lot with me, actually, and usually it's pretty good. I mean, it's pretty hard to ruin beans, veggies, and cheese.

But I did it. I don't know what I was thinking, but I had some pinto beans that had been soaking, and I decided to fry them up with onion and garlic. This would've been great if the pinto beans were already soft. But they weren't. They were hard, nasty little buggers that took about 40 minutes to soften up. Jesus!

So while my granite beans were cooking and the onion was getting overcooked and mushy (I had to keep adding water for the beans, which made the onion nasty), I decided to toss in a generous amount of my dad’s home-dried pepper flakes. And did I mention that these pepper flakes are really hot? Yep. Like screaming-holy-mother-of-god hot. I think he made them with Habaneros or devil dandruff or something.

Anyway, at this point I had too-spicy rock-hard beans with mushy onions. And then I burnt it. Yep. Right to the bottom of the cast iron pan. God damn it. Unlike any sensible person, who would, at this point, simply toss the mess out on the grass for some poor scavenging animal to eat, I decided to add more water, scrape the bean mess off the bottom of the pan, and continue cooking. I also added some red and green pepper. The kitchen by now smelled of burnt-ness, capsacin, and cumin.

Once the beans were soft enough to eat and I couldn’t stand spending any more time on what was surely going to be a bad lunch, I took the pan off the heat, and, what the hell, I mashed it all up. It’s like refried beans… or something?

Well, doesn't that look... brown?

It looks less revolting when you can hardly see the beans.

I ended up eating it like a street taco, and it wasn’t terrible when you drowned it in salsa and yogurt (I use yogurt instead of sour cream). But no amount of sauce really covers up that burnt taste. Oh, and did I mention that I made a ton of it? So I'll have leftover bad beans for a while now.

Anybody want to come over for Mexican food?

Book Review: Make the Bread, Buy the Butter

I’m sort of into that whole DIY movement and I love cookbooks, so when I heard about Make the Bread, Buy the Butter, in which the author attempts to make all food from scratch and then decides whether it’s worth it by analyzing cost and labor, I was pretty excited. I must say, the book did not disappoint. I read it cover to cover (I must admit I skipped the meat sections) which is unusual for a “cookbook,” but that’s just the thing: it read more like a memoir than anything else. Jennifer Reese (the author) talks about her adventures in food making, but also about her life. The section on chickens was particularly hilarious. Anyway, I’ve written down some of the recipes (homemade yogurt, tortillas, or ginger ale anyone?), and I’ll be sure to try them out soon and let you know how I do!

In the meantime, I recommend this book. It’s at the library, and I’m returning it today.

On a totally unrelated note, I think I’m going to attempt to make vegan Jello shots using agar agar. I found this fabulous cucumber-lime margarita jello shot recipe, and I think it needs making. Anyone know where I can buy agar agar?  

Oh! Oh! One more thing! My dad gave me these weird things called chia seeds. They're super strange; eaten plain they taste like sticking a battery to your tongue, and if you put them in water, they make a sort of jelly. I guess they're super good for you, but I didn't really know what to do with them except put them in smoothies or pizza crust. Until, that is, I found this recipe for chia seed coconut pudding. It is actually pretty delicious! (And it's vegan and gluten free for my diet-restricted friends!)

Couscous!

I like couscous, but I didn't know how to cook it--until now, that is! This recipe is pretty quick and easy because, let's face it, if it wasn't, I wouldn't cook it. And who knew that couscous is probably the easiest thing to cook in the entire world!

Yum. Tangy and satisfying. And maybe even kind of pretty?

I pretty much followed this recipe from Yummly, but I modified it a little because I didn't have olives or eggplant (I finally used up my Costco jar of kalamata olives!) and I was too impatient to wait 45 minutes. Oh, and I added broccoli because I love it. If you have fresh herbs or fresh lemons for juice, use those. But I didn't, and it still tasted great.

• 2 zucchini
• 1 red bell pepper
• 1 head of broccoli
• 2 T minced garlic (I hate chopping garlic, so I buy the pre-minced stuff in a jar.)
• some olive oil
• 3 T balsamic vinegar
• 1 T rosemary   
• 2 12 cups water
• 1 t salt
• 1 1/4 c couscous
• 6 T lemon juice
• 4 T basil 

 (So this recipe calls for cutting the veggies in big chunks, cooking them, and then cutting them into tiny pieces. If that sounds too annoying for you, do it differently of course! The zucchini started to get a little mushy on me, so I might recommend leaving it in biggish pieces until the end, but I think the red pepper and broccoli could be cut up little from the very beginning. This recipe makes me wish I had a Slap-Chop...)

1. Turn the oven on to 400°F, and while it preheats, fry the veggies and garlic in a cast iron skillet that is pretty hot, but not too hot. (Don't burn the garlic like I did!)  Once the veggies have a little brownness on them, spread them on a baking sheet, drizzle olive oil and balsamic vinegar sprinkle with rosemary and salt and pepper. Pop them in the oven for however long you can stand. (I did about 10 minutes.)

2. Bring the 2 1/2 cups water, 1 teaspoon salt and 1/2 tablespoon oil to a boil . Stir in couscous. Remove from heat. Let sit for about 5 minutes, and voila! you have magic couscous.

3. When you take the veggies out of the oven, cut them up into little bites. Then mix the veggies with the couscous and add about 1/4 c olive oil, lemon juice, and basil.The recipe says wait 30 minutes before serving, but screw that--just eat it.

This recipe almost tastes better the after it has sat in the fridge for a day. It would be so yummy as a cold summer salad. Om nom nom nom nom.