Wednesday, December 23

Dinner with the Girls

Last night I had my very dear friends Melissa and Kendall over for dinner. I have known both of them since our freshmen year in high school, so a measely 16 years:) Melissa lives in LA so I don't get to see her very often, but when she is in town the three of us usually get together.

I wanted to make them dinner instead of going out so they could see the progress on the house and meet Nika and I also wanted to see if all of my cooking practicing in the past 4 months had paid off at all. Melissa is also a new vegetarian so I had to come up with a meatless dish she could eat so I decided on Sweet Potato Burritos. Sounds weird but they were really quite good! Here is the recipe:

Addictive Sweet Potato Burritos
Ingredients
1 tablespoon vegetable oil
1 onion, chopped
4 cloves garlic, minced
2 cans kidney beans, drained
2 cups water
3 tablespoons chili powder
2 teaspoons ground cumin
4 teaspoons prepared mustard
1 pinch cayenne pepper, or to taste
3 tablespoons soy sauce
4 cups cooked and mashed sweet potatoes
12 (10 inch) flour tortillas, warmed
8 ounces shredded Cheddar cheese
Directions
1.Preheat oven to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C).
2.Heat oil in a medium skillet, and saute onion and garlic until soft. Stir in beans, and mash. Gradually stir in water, and heat until warm. Remove from heat, and stir in the chili powder, cumin, mustard, cayenne pepper and soy sauce.
3.Divide bean mixture and mashed sweet potatoes evenly between the warm flour tortillas. Top with cheese. Fold up tortillas burrito style, and place on a baking sheet.
4.Bake for 12 minutes in the preheated oven, and serve

I used low carb tortillas because they are lower in calories but any whole wheat or flour tortilla will work. I also didn't use 3 tablespoons chilli powder because it seemed like a lot so I used 1 tablespoon instead. Overall I liked the texture and flavor of these burritos. Mashed Sweet potatoes are so gooey and have a baby food like texture so the kidney beans really helped add some more texture to the dish. I should have put a little more cheese in the burritos and when I make this again I would also top with a dollop of sour cream or non fat yogurt, sprinkle a little more cheese on top and smother it with salsa. They would be perfect with those changes but as they were, they were still pretty darn good.

I also made some spanish rice that was ok, but nothing special enough to post and I tried a new appetizer, roasted garbonzo beans. I always seem to have a can of those in my pantry from all of the times I swear I am going to make my own hummus but never do so I put them to some use with the following recipe I got from Life's Ambrosia, my new favorite food/recipe blog (you can also find a link in my blog roll to the right).

Roasted Garbanzo Beans


You will need:
1 (14.5 ounce) can of Garbanzo beans
kosher salt and pepper
1/3 cup flour
1/2 teaspoon granulated garlic
Extra virgin olive oil for drizzling
Preheat oven to 400 degrees.
Drain the garbanzo beans, rinse lightly and gently pat dry. Season lightly with salt and pepper.
In a resealable plastic bag shake together flour, 1/2 teaspoon kosher salt, 1/4 teaspoon fresh ground pepper and granulated garlic. Add garbanzo beans and toss to lightly coat.
Shake off any excess flour. Lay garbanzo beans in a single layer on a baking sheet. Drizzle with extra virgin olive oil. Bake 25-35 minutes, shaking the baking sheet every 10 minutes or so to roll the beans around. When they are done they will be golden brown and crunchy. (Note: Keep an eye on them towards the end, if they look like they are getting too dark remove them, a few of mine burned and let me tell you a burnt garbanzo bean is not so tasty.)

I was paranoid about burning them so I should have left them in a little longer because the darker crunchier ones tatsed better. I would also add more garlic and I should have been more generous with the olive oil. Other than that though, I really liked these and they were quite addictive.

And one of these days I will remember to take pictures of these recipes (the pic of the garbonzo beans is not mine but comes from the blog I got the recipe from). I am usually just so focused on eating that I forget:)

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