Meso 'Merican Magic

This is insanely good food: black beans, red quinoa, and yellow corn.  It needs two hours or even a little more, but very little work.

The ingredients are half a cup of black beans, a cup of red quinoa, three cobs of corn, and maybe a small onion and maybe some whole cloves, and a bit of salt.

The Black Bean Part:

• Put half a cup of black beans beans in a pot with enough water to cover, plus an inch
• Bring to a boil
• Remove from heat and wait an hour
• Drain and rinse
• Put back in the pot with enough water to cover, plus an inch, again
• Peel a small onion but don't cut it.  Stick some cloves in the onion. Or don't.  Or don't even do the onion
• Bring to boil, lower heat to a simmer, and cover
• In half an hour, bite one bean to see if it's done
• From then on, use timer to remember to check every ten minutes until done
• Drain (throw away onion and clove if they happened at all)

The Red Quinoa Part (starts after the beans have been cooking for half an hour):

• Rinse a cup of red quinoa
• Put it in a pot with two cups of water
• Bring to a boil, lower heat to a simmer, and cover
• Cook for 15 minutes
• Check to see if the little white rings have appeared (If not, cook a bit longer and check again)
• Check to see if there's water left (If so, drain off the extra)
• Put the lid back on and let it sit for ten minutes to get fluffier

The Yellow Corn Part (starts when you cover the simmering quinoa)

• Peel three corn cobs and break them in half
• Place in a pot with enough boiling water to cover, plus an inch
• Bring to a boil, lower heat to a simmer, and cover
• Cook for five minutes
• Drain
• Cut corn off the cobs.

• Alternative: open a can of vaccuum packed yellow corn

The Combining Part:

• Combine
• Add a little salt

Lentils and ground lambporkturkeybeef

8 cups water
1 pound lentils, rinsed, drained

1/2 cup olive oil
1/4 cup red wine vinegar
1 tablespoons ground cumin,
1 teaspoon chili powder
2 garlic cloves minced

1 pound ground lamb or pork or turkey or beef
1/2 onion, minced
2 tablespoons olive oil
1 teaspoon cumin
1 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon chili powder
1/2 teaspoon cinnamon

Cook lentils in water for about 20 minutes, testing for doneness by biting a few.  There should be more crunch left than in a lentil soup.

While the lentils are cooking,  combine the next five ingredients, whisk together until they merge nicely, and set aside.

Add the other olive oil to a frying pan and heat.  Add onions and cook five minutes, stirring occasionally, until they're getting soft.

Add the meat to the onion brown, breaking it up and stirring and flipping until it's all brown and in small pieces.  (If there's a lot of fat in the pan, run hot water into the sink, use a colander to drain the meat with the water still running, leave the water running, and flip the meat and onions back into the pan.)  Add the remaining four spices to the meat, stirring rapidly to spread it around and paying attention to whether you're smelling the spices as they heat.  Move the meat into a small bowl.

When the lentils are done, drain into a colander and move to a large bowl.  Mix well with the oil-vinegar-spices you set aside.

Serve bowls of the lentils with a smaller amount of the meat nestled on top.

This recipe uses altered quantities, less salt, and different meat than the original I found at Epicurious.

Lentil Soup

Ingredients
1 pound of lentils
half pound mushrooms
half pound carrots
half an onion
tablespoon of minced garlic
olive oil
bay leaf
teaspoon of oregano
teaspoon of basil
one 28 ounce can whole tomatoes
water
two tablespoons vinegar (red wine vinegar ideal, any other kind can work)
salt

Preparation
Put the lentils in a colander and rinse them with water, turning them over a bunch looking for anything that turns out to be a little rock or a little stick.

Cut the mushrooms in slices.

Peel the carrots and cut them in slices.

Peel the onion and cut it up pretty small.

Dump the tomatoes and their liquid into a bowl and pull each one apart with your fingers into several pieces.

Cooking
Put the lentils, tomatoes, bay leaf, basil, and oregano in your soup pot.

Put a frying pan on the stove over medium heat.

When you can feel warmth holding your hand four inches above the surface, add just enough oil to cover the bottom.

When the oil shimmers a little, add the carrots, and stir and flip frequently. When they've all changed color a bit, dump them on top of the lentils.  (Could take five minutes)

Add a little more oil to the frying pan, add the onions, and a gain stir and flip frequently. Watching for them to be translucent.  (Could take five minutes)

Add the garlic to the onions and stir and flip constantly until the smell is strong and a bunch of the garlic bits are brown.  (Could take less than a minute) Flip the garlic and onions into the soup pot.

Add a little more oil to to the frying pan, and add mushrooms.  Stir and flip constantly until all the mushrooms are partly brown.  For this one, you may decide you need to add a second bit of oil, but don't add lots: mushrooms like to drink it all but don't need as much as they want. (Could take two minutes.)  Flip them into the soup pot.

If the pan has nice brown stuff on it, add a cup of water, and then push your spatula along the bottom to get the brown stuff to melt into the water. Add the water to the soup pot.

Add seven cups of water to the pot.

Bring to a boil, then reduce heat to low and cover.

Simmer for an hour.

Add the vinegar.

Add some salt and pepper, stir well and decide whether to add more.

Variations
Celery, treated like the carrots, makes many people happy. I don't care for the texture of cooked celery, but you might.

Frozen corn, canned corn, or fresh spinach could be added 50 minutes or so into the cooking.  Thin sliced kale might be good too.

Everything except the lentils is about flavor. If you're missing something that's on the list, you can use alternate stuff: parsley, thyme, red wine, lemon,  chicken stock, chicken bouillion can all contribute.  Bacon or ham or sausage would make something different but lovely.

Grated cheese makes it better, though less thrifty.

Turkey/Navy Bean Chili over Rice

Two notes

This is a five-hour project.  It's not a vast amount of work, and you can do lots of other things while things simmer, but you have to be somewhere in the house to do the "stir occasionally" part.  It's perfect for the first cold, rainy weekend of the year.

Also chili is very mild: spice lovers could include a chopped jalapeno when they sauté the vegetables and double the chili powder.  The recipe I started with did that.

Ingredients

 1 lb bag of navy beans

1 lb ground turkey

2 cups uncooked brown rice (six cups cooked)

1 onion (finely chopped)

1 green pepper (diced)

2 stalks celery (finely chopped)

2 cloves garlic (minced)

1 Tbsp olive oil

2 bay leaves

1Tbsp chili powder

2 Tbsp cumin

1 Tbsp turmeric

1 Tbsp salt

2 tsp black pepper

1 tsp oregano

1 14.5-oz can diced tomatoes

shredded cheese (optional)

chopped green onion (optional)

sour cream (optional)

Steps

Put the beans in a pot with a quart of water.  Bring to a boil for one minute, turn off the heat, cover the pot, and leave to soak.

After two hours, drain and rinse soaked beans, then set aside.

Heat oil in stockpot over medium high flame. Sauté onion, garlic, celery, and green bell pepper s until onions are translucent and the other vegetables are slightly tender.  Remove from pot and set aside.

Add six cups water, soaked beans, tomatoes and spices to the sautéed vegetables,. Bring to a boil, then cover and reduce heat to low. Simmer for approximately 1 hour, stirring occasionally.

After the chili has cooked for an hour, put the brown rice and four and a half cups water in a separate pan, bring to a boil, cover, and reduce heat to low.  Set timer for 45 minutes.

Brown the turkey in a frying pan.  Drain and add to the chili.

The chili will be ready at the same time as the rice.

Serve in bowls and garnish with shredded cheddar cheese, chopped green onions and/or a dollop of sour cream.

Chana Masala (aka the chick pea thing)

My go-to vegetarian dish.

Ingredients
Olive oil

2 medium onion, coarsely chopped
2 tablespoon minced garlic
2 tsp cumin seeds
1 tsp ground coriander
1/2 tsp ground ginger

2 bay leaves
1/4 tsp each of clove, cinnamon, cayenne pepper, cardamom
2 28-ounce can whole peeled tomatoes
1 tsp salt, or to taste
4 15-ounce cans chickpeas, drained and rinsed

Optional: two Tbsp cilantro (I never have this in the house)
Optional: Yogurt to go on top

Optional: Brown rice to go underneath

Equipment

Big dutch oven (in a pinch, start with a big frying pan, then switch to a soup pot when you add the chickpeas).

Steps

Mix together all the spices except the salt.

Film the bottom of a large saucepan or Dutch oven with olive oil, and place the pan over medium heat. 

Add the onion, and cook, stirring frequently, until it is deeply caramelized and even charred in some spots. Think twenty minutes or more, because the more color, the more full-flavored the final dish will be.