Whining 'N Dining

Try This: Mexican Black Bean Dip

This week, my nanny gave me a brilliant idea for trying to get my ever so finicky daughter to eat veggies. She's been making bean dip with veggies in it. In fact,  I just polished off a batch that I found sitting in my fridge. I melted some cheese on top and ate with some tortilla chips. Yum!

This is a great recipe for school lunches as you can send this along with tortilla chips, pita chips or carrots & celery for dipping. And you'll know that your kid will be happily eating his or her veggies as they nosh on this tasty dip.

Ingredients:

1 15.5-ounce can black beans or white beans

1/3 cup mild or medium-hot salsa

1/3 cup of fresh or frozen mixed veggies (i.e. carrots, bell peppers, peas, etc)

1/4 cup cilantro leaves, plus extra for garnish (optional)

4 teaspoons fresh lemon juice

l small garlic clove, minced

1/2 teaspoon of cumin

Salt to taste

Directions:
1. Drain and rinse the black beans.

2. Cook the veggies (I like to sauté them).
2. Combine the black beans, salsa, veggies, cilantro leaves, lemon juice, garlic, cumin and salt in a food processor. Blend until smooth.
3. Garnish with cilantro leaves, if you like. Makes 1 1/4 cups and serves 4 to 6.

Me gusta la salsa verde

Salsa verde or as we call it in Texas "green sauce" is muy delicioso on chips, enchiladas, grilled fish / meat and eggs, to name a few. We've always wanted to make it ourselves, but have been a tad intimidated with handling tomatillos. Today, we mustered up the courage and bought a bunch of the little green, tomato-like fruit at the Hollywood Farmers' Market. Did our research and discovered an easy salsa verde recipe on Simply Recipes. So easy that I feel so foolish for avoiding an attempt at it for so long....think of all of the enchiladas I've missed out on.

We ate this salsa verde on grilled flank steak and sauteed polenta (from TJ's), and everyone was asking for more sauce. My husband shouted to me from the table, "Sweets, I think we found  a new condiment!" You're thinking we are total nerds, aren't you?? Or maybe you just have condiment envy?