BLAT and Chipotle-Ancho Lime Sweet Potatoes

to accompany our easy stand-by dinner, the BLAT (think BLT and add avocado), i made the most amazing sweet potatoes.  If i don't write it down, i will never forgive myself.  They are a little spicy and very tangy!

Ancho-Chipotle Lime Sweet Potatoes

1 dried chipotle pepper, stemmed and seeded
1 dried ancho chili, stemmed and seeded
2 tsp cumin seed
1 tsp kosher salt
3 garlic cloves, minced
2 limes
~1/3 cup olive oil
3 medium sweet potatoes, peeled, and diced evenly
1 medium sweet onion

pre-heat oven to 375

in a dry skillet over medium high heat, toast the chili peppers, turning once until toasty and pliable, and the cumin seeds, until fragrant and beginning to brown.  grind in coffee mill with salt.

in a small bowl, combine 1/2 pepper powder, garlic, juice of one lime, and equal amount olive oil
spread sweet potatoes and onion on lined baking sheet or large baking dish.  mix dressing and toss with potatoes/onion.  If more is needed, mix more pepper powder, lime juice, and olive oil and repeat.

bake in oven, stirring every 10 minutes until edges are chewy-sweet (40-60 minutes depending on size of chunks).

serve over a bed of arugula is desired.

Vegetarian Black Bean Chili with Orange, Crock Pot Black Bean Soup, and Maple Cornbread Muffins

We needed to use up the Cornbread Muffins I made for a different Black bean soup, Vegetarian Black Bean Chili with Orange and Cumin. I followed both recipes for the most part. In the cornbread muffins, since we didn't make the maple butter, we put some maple syrup in the batter to add sweetness. Also, fresh corn is available at the market, so we added the kernels from an ear to the batter too. The recommended cooking time is not quite long enough. The edges browned and got crispier the second time I reheated in the oven. I would recommend making muffins ahead of time, then crisping up right before dinner. For the black bean chili, I substituted chipotle powder for the chili powder and added 1 tbsp cocoa powder with the other spices, for more of a deeper, mole flavor. I substituted 1 1/2 lbs diced plum tomatoes for the canned tomatoes. the soup didn't need the hot sauce because the chipotle powder added enough spice. This was super delicious, but only fed 3 of us perfectly, not exactly 4 servings plus leftovers! I did misread how many cans of black beans and only put the equivalent of 2 cans, not 3. This could potentially make up for the missing servings.

The second black bean recipe, Crock Pot Black Bean Soup with Chipotle was really easy and really good. Alex thought it was more of a chili, but i thought it was more of a traditional black bean soup. We followed the recipe exactly but halved it because we didn't have a 6-quart slow cooker. That must have been a typo, because there was plenty of room for more than double the half recipe we used. Next time I will make the entire recipe, as the two of us easily finished the half. I followed every direction except we used 1 whole chipotle and the juice of one lime. I also added 2 sprigs of oregano and a bay leaf to the mixture. After 7 hours it wasn't quite as thick as I expected, so we put it on a bit longer since we weren't overly hungry yet. We topped it with shredded white cheddar and sour cream. I forgot the cilantro and do not care for raw tomato. This was sooo easy and we will make the other half sometime this weekend! I will use veggie stock instead of water next time since i will have it on hand. A great easy recipe for when I don't want to spend a lot of time in the kitchen, just need to plan ahead. The beans were perfect too, easy way to cook beans from dried, and only need to plan ahead the morning of, not the night before! I will definitely try more bean recipes this way!