Three things to do with beans

I mentioned that we are staying at a farm where we have been eating a lot of beans and grains. One of the things we have been eating a lot of is tacos. We started out pretty basic (beans and cheese). But I thought I would share some of the ways we've been changing it up.

All of these recipes utilize kidney beans, because that's all we have. Every couple of days we soak about two cups of dried beans before we go to bed. The next evening when we want to make dinner we bring them to a boil and simmer for about 45 minutes, or until they are tender. I season them with some salt and pepper, chili powder, and cumin. We then use the beans in various recipes, including but not limited to, tacos.

Basic Tacos

To the left is our first taco attempt. It is pretty basic. Each taco has some beans, shredded lettuce, grated carrots, and about a tablespoon of feta cheese. It's not really feta, it's a salty kind of goat cheese that they make here on the farm. But I think feta would be a good approximation. Obviously we used corn tortillas.

I didn't take a picture of it but I think my favorite is when we saute 1 or 2 mild green peppers and then add one cup of beans and two eggs. We use corn tortillas.

Post Punk Kitchen Lettuce Wraps

This next one isn't really a taco, more of a wrap. But I think the essence is the same. The recipe is from Post Punk Kitchen, one of my favorite cooking websites. The original recipe is titled Portland Porche Lettuce Wraps. It is a bean and nectarine filling wrapped in lettuce and topped with edamame pesto. I also liked it because I think there description of Portland, OR was pretty funny. It was a good mix of recognizing the really awesome things about Portland, while still recognizing that people can be kind of pretentious about it. I think the PPK recipe would be delicious, but I made some substitutions based on what I had. I used sugar snap peas instead of edamame, and I didn't shell them. I also used sugar snap peas instead of asparagus. And, of course, kidney beans. I thought it turned out really well. The dish was particularly visually appealing.