The weather today was perfect. It was sunny, 70ish degrees, and breezy. We took the opportunity to clean out the garage. Last February (no, not this last one, but the last one...over a year ago) I went on a cleaning binge and put a bunch of stuff (like, 2 carloads) in the garage with the intent to take it to Goodwill. Today, we took it to Goodwill (after we unburied it from a year and a half's worth of crap). My dinner plan was to make stuffed shells, but frankly, that sounded too heavy after a day of activity. Plus, I felt lazy. (Noticing any trends yet?) For today's Picture Shenanigans I am going to share what we had for dinner after a day of hard work. Stop rolling your eyes, it's not the leftover fried chicken from last night. (Mr. Sty ate that for breakfast, remember?)
(Looks delicious, doesn't it? Didn't know I had it in me, did you?)
Lazy Night Dinner for Reals (or Roasted Corn and Black Bean Salad with Wheatberries)
(serves 4)
Okay, so, wheatberries...the name reminds me of the word "dingleberries", which is gross, but they are delicious and awesome and full of nutritious goodness. However, they take approximately half an ice-age to cook. (Okay, they only really take about an hour to cook, but still...) So, get those going first, go have a beer (or two), then come back 40 minutes later to start preparing the rest of the dish.
Ingredients:
1 cup uncooked wheatberries (I like Bob's Red Mill Red Wheatberries)
1 can of black beans, rinsed
2 ears of sweet corn (or 1 1/2 cups of frozen corn if you're feeling lame and/or lazy)
1/2 small red onion
1/2 red bell pepper
1 Tbsp olive oil
1 cup cherry tomatoes (halved)
1 mango
1 avocado
1 lemon
Cook the wheatberries according to the directions. (For mine, I combined 1 cup of dry wheatberries (rinsed) with 3 1/2 cups of water and some sea salt in a saucepan. Bring the water to a boil, then turn down to a low boil and cover. Let cook for an hour-ish or until you're so starving that you don't mind eating little grain-balls that are slightly crunchy. Just call it "al dente".)
After two beers, (er...40 minutes), finely chop the 1/2 red onion and the 1/2 red bell pepper. Cut the kernels from the 2 ears of corn. Dice the jalapeno (come on, throw the seeds in too). Heat the olive oil in a nonstick frying pan on high-ish. Add the onion and saute for 1-2 minutes. Add the sweet corn and cook until it starts to brown slightly, stirring occasionally. Season with salt and pepper. Add the jalapeno, bell pepper, and the juice of 1/2 the lemon and cook until the peppers become slightly tender (another 2-4 minutes). The vegetables should still be crunchy, just slightly cooked.
In a serving bowl, combine the rinsed black beans and the cooked corn mixture. Add the halved cherry tomatoes. Peel and dice the mango and stir into the bean/corn mixture. Dice the avocado. My wheatberries were tender after an hour of cooking, but they hadn't absorbed all of the water, so I just strained the excess water. Spoon some wheatberries into a bowl and top with a bunch of the corn mixture. Add 1/4 of the diced avocado. Squirt some juice from the remaining 1/2 lemon on top. (The child did not want anything mixed together and she doesn't really dig beans, so I set aside some of the corn mixture for her before I added it to the beans. I added the mango and tomatoes to hers. I gave her some wheatberries on the side with a little bit of butter (just call me Paula), because that makes everything awesome.)
So there you have it. There really isn't too much work involved for this meal and you don't have to turn on the oven, which is a bonus on hot days. Yum!
(A meal the whole family can enjoy. Sparkle Pig seriously wanted my dinner. We discovered that he apparently looooves black beans.)
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