TJ's Poutine

We're big fans of poutine (see here and here), so when we saw that Trader Joe's had started selling a frozen bag of poutine ($3.99), we knew we had to try it. We didn't think it would top the versions of poutine we previously had, but we hoped it would be good for a side dish or snack. M thought it might be a limited run or that it might sell out quickly, so she picked it up back in December the first time she saw it. It's still around so guess we didn't have to rush. We finally got around to trying it this week.

The poutine bag consists of fries and two pouches - one with the beef gravy and one with the white cheddar curds. You bake the fries in the oven until they're crispy, and thaw the gravy and cheese packages in a pot of hot water. Pretty simple.

Overall we thought this poutine was okay. The flavor of the beef gravy was good, but there wasn't enough of it. The cheese curds were good too, but could have used a bigger package to balance the larger amount of fries. That's one big difference between the poutine we've gotten at restaurants and this one - there is a lot more gravy and cheese in the non-TJ's poutine dishes. Poutine for us is all about the gravy and cheese. This was good, but just not as good as it could have been since there wasn't enough of those two things.

Buy Again? Probably not, since there are other frozen fries/potato side dishes we like more. But we are glad we gave it a shot and think it is definitely worth a try.

Passion Fruit Zico

I was at Whole Foods the other day looking for something to drink when I stumbled upon a last chance sale on coconut water. (I also found Bell's Brewery sampling some fantastic beer, but that wasn't really what I meant by a drink.) I guess they're phasing out a bunch of items, including a few Zico flavors. The sale sign was also under the original flavor which I thought was odd, and I didn't read it closely enough in my rush to realize that only the passion fruit and mango were on sale. I ended up getting the passion fruit when the person at the register swapped the regular-priced original out for one that was discounted. I love passion fruit flavor, so I figured this water couldn't be that bad.

Well, it was. I hated it and completely understood why Whole Foods wasn't going to carry it anymore. It tasted just like some medicine I took when I was younger. In this case, since I didn't get a drink for fun and needed it because I was really dehydrated, I just pretended it was medicine in order to get it down. Just did not taste pleasing to me at all.

I only ended up drinking half of it and gave the rest to A. Unlike me, A thought the fruit flavor here was mild, nice and tart. He doesn't really like flavored coconut water but preferred this to some of the other flavors like chocolate. I let him finish it as I had no desire to remind myself of a medicine whose name I have clearly blocked from my memory. I don't mind the pineapple flavor but I don't think I'll ever get the passion fruit one again. Good thing it was only 67 cents after my bag discount.

Coconut Curry Butternut Squash

Continuing my trend of eating any and all Hale and Hearty Chef's Series soups, I ventured out in the cold today to sample Andrew Carmellini's offering of Coconut Curry Butternut Squash. The website describes it as "This fantastic soup from James Beard award winning Chef Andrew Carmellini blends the smoothness of butternut squash with the gentle heat of fresh ginger and sweet coconut milk, making the soup both rich and savory."

I wasn't really sure what to expect when I got the soup as butternut squash is inherently sweet, but the blend of ginger and curry spices are much more savory. Coconut milk could balance out with additional sweetness, but in the end I decided to stop thinking and just be intrigued.

Not the expected color...

This was not the color I was expecting from this soup. Because of the butternut squash I envisioned a more orange tinted soup, but this was a green-ish color that, to be very honest, was not the most appetizing in appearance. I ignored that, though, as the flavor profile still sounded good. It's hard to describe this flavor because it at first seems like the different flavors are fighting each other, but it harmonizes after the first sip. The smooth, rich soup hits you with spices and a sharp ginger hit before rolling over your tongue with the sweetness from the coconut and butternut squash.

Overall, I'm not sure what I think about this soup. It's amazingly complex yet so simple looking. The myriad of changing flavors confused me at first but was quite pleasant in the end. I don't know if I would get this again as I almost feel too stupid to fully understand the depth of this soup, but who knows, maybe with more eating (ha!) I'll begin to fully appreciate what this offered.

Sake Mushrooms

We bought a lot of mushrooms from Costco over the weekend which meant I needed to look for some new ideas for mushroom sides. It was good timing as this recipe for sake mushrooms from 101 Cookbooks was waiting for me in my blog reader. They looked delicious, the recipe sounded easy, and I had all the ingredients at home already (or workable substitutes). 

Ingredients:

For the mushrooms, we needed:

- 8 large white mushrooms ($1.25)

- 1/2 cup of flour ($0.30)

- 1/2 tsp sea salt ($0.05)

- 1 cup of sake ($1.25)

- 1 tbsp olive oil ($0.10)

- 1 tbsp butter ($0.25)

The recipe also included a topping of miso butter which needed:

- 1 tbsp butter ($0.25)

- 2 tsp miso ($0.30)

- 1 tsp toasted sesame seeds ($0.05)

This mushroom side dish ended up costing about $4. Most of that is from the sake and the mushrooms. I think if we were to just marinate the mushrooms in sake (instead of using it for dredging - spoiler for how this dish turned out), the dish would be much more cost-efficient. It didn't make a huge portion of mushrooms (a decent amount for a side dish for 2), so $4 isn't that cheap (in my opinion). Sometimes you can get a good sized side of mushrooms at a restaurant for $4.

Process:

Since I was simultaneously working on poached eggs and polenta, making these mushrooms was a team effort for A and me. Being able to share the kitchen tasks certainly helped with timing and eating dinner before 9 pm!

Cooking process: toasted sesame seeds; ready to dredge; dredged mushroom slices; olive oil and butter heating up; mixing up miso butter; cooking mushrooms in the skillet; partway through the cooking time; after attempting to flip the stuck mushrooms over

We followed the procedure almost exactly as given in the recipe here. Basically you dip the mushroom slices in sake, dredge them in flour and then cook them in a single layer in a skillet with olive oil and butter, flipping them over when ready. The miso butter is just a mix of the ingredients (once the sesame seeds are toasted). Instead of dotting the mushrooms with butter, I mixed the miso butter into the mushrooms like a sauce. It was thick and didn't really dot very well. The recipe sounded simple in theory but didn't turn out to be as easy as we thought it would be.

We had two big issues, one in prep and one in cooking. The prep issue was that the flour started to clump and get doughy and sticky. Just like with the onion rings, the flour didn't coat as lightly and cleanly as we thought it would. I always read these blog posts where people dredge different ingredients through flour and it never looks clumpy. What are we doing wrong? The cooking issue was that the flour fell off a lot of the mushrooms (and clumped up in the pan too) and they just got brown, without that browning adding a lot of flavor. What did I do wrong?

Review:

The flavor of the mushroom dish wasn't bad, but all the effort of dredging and inclusion of the flour didn't seem to add anything whatsoever. The miso butter was pretty good and very buttery, but it would have been better just mixing that into sauteed mushrooms. We both didn't think flouring the mushrooms was worth it (time or effort). If we were to do this in the future, I think we would just saute the mushrooms (after marinating them in sake) and mix in the miso butter afterwards, or maybe just saute them in olive oil, butter and miso from the beginning. But we won't do the flour step. I guess I'm not really sure what its purpose was as it didn't seem to add anything (unless we were doing it wrong). Perhaps I'm just not meant to dredge things.

Oregon Dairy

Our first "real" stop on our Pennsylvania food adventure was Oregon Dairy, a popular restaurant in Lititz which has both a large buffet and an a la carte menu. We got there a couple hours later than we planned, but luckily still made it in time for lunch.

After we ordered, they brought over a small plate with rolls and butter, which was appreciated but nothing very remarkable.

A opted for the buffet since it was late and he was really hungry, while M looked through the menu for Pennsylvania Dutch specialties that we couldn't get at home. (One of our goals on the road trip was to try lots of local specialties in different areas of Pennsylvania.) Although not a big meat eater, she was really intrigued by the sweet and sour ham balls, which sounded a bit like ground meatballs but with ham. The menu described them as, "Lancaster County Gene Wenger's ham loaf mix topped with our signature sweet and sour pineapple sauce." Can't get more local than something developed in Lancaster County!

The ham balls came in orders of 2, 3 or 4, and M opted for 3, not knowing how large they would be. The meal also came with 2 sides, and M picked sweet kernel corn and stewed tomatoes. Both vegetable sides tasted very clean and healthy. Simple recipes, but full of the flavors of corn and tomatoes, letting both vegetables and their natural sweetness shine.

The ham balls were excellent. Giant soft meatballs topped with sweet pineapple glaze. The first bite was like a combination of honey ham, hot dog, meatball and meatloaf all in one. It was really, really good. The sweet and sour pineapple sauce was good too (and exactly as described), but wasn't even necessary. That's how good the ham balls were on their own.

Since A got the buffet, he got to try many different items. For his first plate, he got a ham ball, fried shrimp, baked corn, mixed vegetables, red skin mashed potatoes and macaroni and cheese. The ham ball was the same as the one M got but a little smaller and more well done and without all the sweet and sour sauce. He mixed one of his ham balls into the sauce that M had so he could taste the sauce. It was sweet, and ham meatballs fit perfectly with it like a good honey ham. Most of the rest of the food was fairly standard fare. While the mashed potatoes weren't instant and the mac and cheese were fresher, they were still, in the end, just mashed potatoes and mac and cheese. The fried shrimp was a fried shrimp, the corn was corn, and the vegetables were vegetables. It was nice to have the vegetables and corn, though, as they certainly helped balance out the richness of the rest of the food. Also, A just really likes corn.

On his second plate, A got chicken pot pie, stewed tomatoes (the same ones M had), smoked sausage, potato filling, and pork and kraut. A really liked the stewed tomatoes because they were so fresh and so sweet. The potato filling was a bit odd as it was really stuffing with potato in it. It was a bit dry and very dense/heavy. The chicken pot pie was tasty even if it wasn't a pot pie that A was accustomed to. Sadly the smoked sausage and pork & kraut were a little dried out from the steam tray buffet line so they were a little tough. The kraut was tasty, though.

For his last savory plate, A got some of his favorite items from the buffet - ham balls, stewed tomatoes, chicken corn pie and mixed vegetables. The chicken corn pie was delicious and tasted like chicken corn chowder.

On his dessert plate, A got an eclair cake, Watergate and whoopie pie. The eclair cake was basically cream with a swirl of chocolate and maybe some cake-y pieces mixed in and not an actual eclair. The Watergate he got because it looked weird, and he wanted to see what it was. It was creamy and sweet and had pineapple pieces and shaved coconut in it. The whoopie pie was moist and dense, but it was just too sweet.

The buffet also included a cup of ice cream from the ice cream shop next door (called the Milk House). A got birthday cake ice cream since he knew it was one of M's favorites and we could enjoy it together. It was rich and creamy and full of sprinkles. The frosting aspect gave the ice cream itself a wonderful flavor, and the bits of mixed in cake were perfect.

Oregon Dairy also has an adjacent playground, which we found lots of fun and a good place to walk off some of our lunch before heading back out on the road. There's also a supermarket on the other side of the restaurant that we wandered through. The produce looked good, but other than that, it was pretty much a regular grocery store.

We were really happy with our lunch at Oregon Dairy. The food was prepared well, the buffet had a lot of good options, and we got to try a local specialty in the ham balls. We would definitely go back to Oregon Dairy.

Oregon Dairy is located at 2900 Oregon Pike in Lititz, PA.

Flight Snacks

We've written about JetBlue here before and it's still one of our favorite airlines. Free snacks, free DirecTV, more legroom than other airlines for the basic economy seat - it's hard to beat that. We had already eaten dinner, but it was a long flight (over 5 hours) so we got several snacks.

I started off with water and cranberry juice, while A got Coke Zero and cranberry juice. We also stocked up on those mini water bottles throughout the flight since it was so dry.

I was sad that they no longer had Fritos as a snack option and that the only Popcorners were kettle flavored (my least favorite), so I settled for some Doritos and mini chocolate chip cookies. Years and years ago, I remember buying cookies like this in Costco sized packs for school snacks. It had been so long that I had forgotten how much I liked them. A got the Terra Blues with a bag of cookies. We really enjoyed the cookies.

JetBlue, please don't ever stop the free snacks. They are much appreciated!

Marc Murphy's Beef Barley Soup with Mushrooms and Kale

I feel like I should have gotten this soup yesterday when I was being pelted by wind and snow, but I opted to finally try the second offering from Hale and Hearty's 2014 Chef's Series soups. Chef Marc Murphy offers up a wonderfully hearty soup that's full of flavor. According to the website: "We are proud to bring you this soup from acclaimed Chef Marc Murphy. This delicious Landmarc soup is made from farm fresh vegetables, tender braised beef and succulent oyster mushrooms." Now, I don't know if Chef Murphy actually does serve this soup at Landmarc, but it's certainly a delicious, rich winter soup.

Rich and Comforting Soup

The picture above doesn't quite capture the proper color as it's more of a darker brown and less of the reddish color that my camera picked up. I also had to retake my picture which is why the cup doesn't look 100% full. This soup is started with the classic mirepoix of carrots, onions, and celery and is then enhanced with chopped kale and oyster mushrooms. The soup itself is finished with cubes of beef, barley, and spices. I can't place all of the spices, but the one that I got a good hit of from time to time was cumin. M and I are huge fans of cumin, and it pairs so well with red meat.

Overall this is an extremely comforting and warming soup. The beef is stewed to point of being extremely tender while still offering a nice bite to it, and the barley is cooked to a perfect chewiness. A lot of people think kale is a fad vegetable, but I hope it stays. I like how it's used here in the soup as the leaves and stem offer more bite than spinach would, and they're so nutrient rich. If it snows again tomorrow like it's supposed to, I might just have to go out and grab another order of Chef Murphy's soup.

T5 Eats

Our Vegas escape started out with one travel inconvenience after another. The subway was late. It was packed and there were no seats, so we had to stand as the cars swayed back and forth, giving us motion sickness. We got to the Airtrain, thinking we had gotten some good luck since they weren't charging for the Airtrain, but the reason was because there was some fire the day before and the Airtrain wasn't running the full trip to the airport. So we had to disembark at Federal Circle and take a shuttle bus to the terminal. The shuttle bus filled up and then just hung around for awhile before finally leaving. We were so happy when we finally set foot in JetBlue's Terminal 5 (where there were basically no lines for check-in or security) and our trip could officially begin. 

We got a table in the (relatively empty) food court and split the sandwiches we picked up earlier in the day at Trader Joe's. We used to just eat whatever was available at the airport but it's so expensive and the quality isn't always great (see here and here). We can get 2 Trader Joe's sandwiches for less than the price of one Cibo sandwich. Much better deal.

We brought two sandwiches with us, both of which we had tried on another trip (but I don't think we wrote about yet). The first one we ate was the tarragon chicken salad wrap, which we remembered was the one we liked less.

The wrap had white meat chicken pieces, celery, almonds, parsley, tarragon and romaine lettuce wrapped up in a tortilla. The last time we had it A thought it was pretty bland. This time it had much more flavor, and the lettuce added a nice crunch.

The other sandwich we got was the grilled pesto chicken wrap, which had grilled chicken, feta cheese, zucchini, summer squash, roasted red peppers, green onions and sundried tomatoes in a tortilla with a cashew walnut pesto vinaigrette.

This sandwich was good, but not as spectacular as we remembered. The two sandwiches were equally good, which wasn't the case the last time we got them. We remembered liking this one more, but the pesto didn't seem very flavorful this time so perhaps that accounts for the difference. It was still good, but it was matched by the tarragon chicken salad.

We weren't completely full from the sandwiches, but figured we would just snack on the plane. But the table next to us was sharing a box of waffle fries, and I was still feeling a little queasy between the subway and bus rides, so all I wanted were waffle fries. The answer? The "Pomes Frites" place in the airport food court.

The waffle fries weren't cheap, but they were a decent portion size so $4 wasn't a terrible wallet hit. Nicely fried up, they were perfect for soothing our tummies.

After our sandwiches, waffle fries, orange juice and some water, it was time to make our way to our gate to board our flight. Vacation was officially underway!

February Custard Calendar

The February custard calendar is up with some new and exciting flavors! Then again, we did say that last month about peanut butter candy bar and we completely forgot every Thursday that it was the custard of the day. Hopefully we'll be better about it on Thursdays this month...

The line-up is:

Monday - chocolate mint fudge
Tuesday - big easy banana chip
Wednesday - salted caramel (4.75/10)
Thursday - blackout
Friday - Cupid's passion (passion fruit pineapple) (8/10)
Saturday - coffee and donuts (5.75/10, although, to be fair, it's because I don't like coffee)
Sunday - honey roasted peanut brittle (new but we gave honey roasted peanut 7/10)

We're both most looking forward to blackout, but A is also looking forward to having Cupid's Passion again as he was too sick to remember anything about that flavor. Can't wait to try them!

Vegas Escape

Polar vortex. Single digit and below zero wind chills. Snow and more snow. Not enough sunlight. We needed an escape from winter. So we went to Las Vegas last weekend!

The famous Las Vegas sign on our last day

It was a very last minute trip, so much so that we were able to check weather forecasts before booking the trip. So much of the country was projected to be cold and/or wet, the Caribbean was a bit out of our budget this year, and flights to and from California and Florida were pretty packed. The best options appeared to be Albuquerque and Vegas, so we chose to return to Las Vegas to see a different (off-Strip) side of it. It wasn't as warm as we had hoped (not shorts weather) but it was a welcome escape from the frigid Northeast. This time we're determined to finish our recaps before our memories fade, unlike so many of our other trips! 

Week 4 - Lima Beans Part II

As I mentioned in the original post about the Week 4 challenge, I am no fan of lima beans. To challenge myself to like this "ingredient I hated as a kid," I found two potential lima bean recipes. Since the first didn't succeed, I was hoping the second - for easy lima beans - would make me like lima beans. The reviews for the recipe were mostly favorable - comments like "I am converted to a lima bean lover" and "very tasty" and "outstanding" from non-lima bean people convinced me that this would be the one to get me to like lima beans. Would it work?

Ingredients:

- 1 bag of frozen lima beans ($2.69)

- 1 onion ($0.50)

- chicken broth ($0.10)

- cooking spray for sauteing onions ($0.05)

- salt and pepper for seasoning ($0.05)

Fairly inexpensive, about $3.40. But there aren't many ingredients involved.

Process:

1. Spray saucepan with cooking spray. Saute onions until translucent.

2. Pour in chicken broth and bring to boil.

3. Once boiling, add lima beans.

4. Stir together lima beans and onions.

5. Add enough water to cover the lima beans and onions. Add salt and pepper to taste. Bring to a boil, then cover and reduce heat to low. Cook for about 30 minutes until the beans are tender.

6. Since not all of the liquid in the pot evaporated, I let it simmer longer without the cover on. It didn't really reduce that much though.

Review:

The lima beans this time were less chalky, probably because they were simmering in chicken broth for so long, but they were still dry and bland. After cooking in the broth, the onions were flavorless, the beans were flavorless, and the salt and pepper I added seemed to do absolutely nothing. It wasn't just me. A agreed with me that this recipe was really bland and flavorless. The other lima bean recipe was clearly better, in our opinion. I had to eat the rest of this for lunch as leftovers, and the only way to make it palatable was to use the rest of the broth as "soup" and dump in lots of red pepper flakes, salt, pepper, cumin, parsley and garlic powder. It's like the flavorless black bean soup all over again.

I do know one thing for sure - this dish did not make me like lima beans. It did not convert me to a lima bean lover. If anything, this week's experiment has convinced me that nothing will make me like lima beans. At least I can say that I gave it my best shot.

Geoffrey Zakarian's Heirloom Bean Soup

It's been a while since I wrote about a Hale and Hearty soup, but I think with the way weather in NYC has been going, it was time to revisit the New York mecca of soup. Lucky me that they brought back the Chef's Series for another round, and this was the first 2-week series. Geoffrey Zakarian brings us his Heirlom Bean Soup.

Heirloom Bean Soup

They describe the soup as: "Appaloosa, Yellow Eye Steuben, Tongues of Fire… These are just some of the dozen exotic beans used in Iron Chef Geoffrey Zakarian's Heirloom Bean soup. This delicious, robust soup uses beans that have fantastic colors and superior flavor."

The soup starts with a base of onions, celery, tomato, green peppers, leeks, and garlic. It's also filled with tons of spices that I couldn't fully place. Obviously it is also chock full of beans as well. Lots and lots of different types of beans. The first thing I got from this soup was an intense hit of citrus. It was actually really refreshing considering that there was so much starchy bean matter loading the soup. In the end this was a refreshing yet hearty soup that was much lighter than I expected considering how dense the ingredients were, and it's one that, if brought back, I would gladly try again.

Coconut Marshmallow

First new custard review in a long time! In the middle of Winter Storm Janus, M stopped by Shake Shack and picked up some of the Tuesday custard flavor - coconut marshmallow.

M's thoughts:
This custard was the flavor of sweet shredded coconut in custard form. I love coconut so I was a fan of this. I didn't get much marshmallow, but (a) coconut is a stronger flavor and (b) I like coconut much more than marshmallows, so I didn't really miss it.

A's thoughts:
This was a really coconut-y custard, and it was really tasty. The custard itself was full of coconut flavor, and the shredded coconut added additional flavor as well as texture. I may not be as big a fan of coconut as M, but I do like it, and this was really good. I didn't taste any marshmallow, though, and I forgot it was coconut marshmallow until I just read the title again.

Coconut Marshmallow
A's rating: 8/10
M's rating: 8/10

Creamy Polenta

We like polenta, but we don't eat it that often. I've never made it "from scratch" but have now bought from Trader Joe's both the tubes of pre-cooked polenta (which were used in the tamale pie) and the creamy polenta ($2.99) from the frozen section. The frozen polenta looked like an easy side dish to heat up on a day when we would need something quickly.

When I took out the package, I thought maybe it had frozen into blocks because I kept it in the freezer door, so I was surprised to see that the "blocks" were actually the way it was supposed to look. They were large teardrop-shaped pieces of polenta surrounded by frozen vegetables (spinach and carrots). 

I followed the microwave instructions from the package. As the polenta cooked, the pieces started to melt and became softer and creamier.

We were really excited to try this, even if it wasn't the most attractive dish once it was all stirred up and ready to eat. It was okay. It was creamy and rich, but didn't have a ton of cornmeal flavor like you would expect from polenta. I was expecting it to have a really intense cornmeal flavor like the polenta tubes, but it didn't. It was much more subdued. The vegetables didn't add a whole lot either. They weren't easily distinguishable in flavor from any of the rest of the dish. The polenta just tasted like it needed a little extra something. Reading other people's reviews online now, and maybe it would have been better with a little salt or some grated parmesan.

Buy Again? Maybe, but probably not. It wasn't awful, but, given a choice between this and the tube, we would both probably pick the pre-cooked polenta tube instead. I know it's not the same as "real" polenta, but we really enjoy the firmer texture and the flavor. And then you can have tamale pie (among other things)!

Note: I started this post when we ate the frozen polenta over the summer. I think Trader Joe's still carries it, but we haven't bought it since, so I'm not 100% sure.

Alexander's Tea

Another post from the archives, this time from the end of June. Why did I not post anything in June when I wrote them?

I don't buy a lot of drinks (I usually just drink water), but when it's over 90 degrees and I'm on a long walk, I inevitably end up at Duane Reade looking for a good cold drink. Often it's Vitamin Water, but if there's something on sale for $1, it's more likely that. This time the sale was for New Jersey-based Alexander's Real Tea, which sounded good to me!

They had peach and raspberry, and I went with peach. The tea flavor wasn't very strong, but the peach flavor was nice and light. It wasn't overly sweet like some iced teas can be, but tasted more like actual fruit. I also liked that the ingredients had no artificial flavors, but relied on real cane sugar and natural flavors. I think you can taste the difference.

Would I get this again? I think I would. If there were water on sale, I'd probably get that instead since it's better hydration on a sweltering hot day, but this iced tea had a nice sweetness and was really refreshing.

(I love that I wrote this on a day when it was 90 degrees outside and the current weather is temperatures in the 20s with snow for at least the next 12 hours. What a contrast.)

Enchilada Casserole with Kale and Sweet Potatoes

Back to the draft archives... I wrote this post on June 12, 2013. As far as I can tell, the only thing I hadn't done yet was center the photos. I can't believe I still have all of these almost-finalized posts in the archives. Time to get them posted! This one is pretty much as-written from June.

When I was at Trader Joe's earlier this week, I spontaneously picked up another bag of kale since they had a cleaned and cut variety similar to the one from Wegmans. I had no idea if it would be cheaper to get fresh whole kale, but it certainly would take much more time to prepare. I remembered seeing a recipe in my web surfing that used kale in a casserole and I definitely wanted to try that out. The recipe below is adapted from this one that I found on SparkRecipes.

Ingredients

The total cost for the casserole was about $8. We were really hungry so we ate the entire thing, but I could see this working out to 3 portions if you're not starving. It's mostly vegetables so the portion size is pretty large.

The ingredients - disregard the corn salsa as I ended up not using it

- 1 large sweet potato ($0.49)

- 1 small onion or 1/2 of one large onion ($1)

- 1/2-2/3 tsp of cumin powder (or seed) ($0)

- 1 bag of cleaned and cut kale leaves (or chopped leaves from 1 bunch of kale) ($1.99)

- 1 can of black beans ($0.75)

- 1 can of tomato sauce ($1.49)

- 1/4-1/3 cup of chipotle salsa ($0.60)

- 1/2 cup of cheddar jack (or similar) cheese ($0.80)

- 3 green onions ($0.43)

- 7 corn tortillas cut in strips ($0.32)

Process

Step 1:  Prepare the vegetables. Chop the onions and green onions. Grate the sweet potato.

Step 2:  Preheat the oven to 425 degrees.

Step 3:  Coat baking dish (13x9x2) with cooking spray and place grated sweet potato as the bottom layer.

Step 4:  Add a layer of onions.

Step 5:  Sprinkle on cumin. 

Step 6:  Add the kale leaves. [They were higher than the baking dish once we layered them in.]

Step 7:  Drain and rinse the can of black beans. Add the layer of beans to the dish.

Step 8:  Add the can of tomato sauce and the chipotle salsa and layer as evenly as possible.

Step 9:  Add the green onions.

Step 10:  Sprinkle on as much cheese as you like. We love cheddar jack, especially when it's all melted and cheesy.

Step 11:  Cover the dish with corn tortillas. The original recipe called for 4, but that barely covered the dish so I used 7. I think it was just to weigh down the kale, so perhaps it didn't need to be fully covered and could have had some space inbetween.

Step 12:  Cover the dish and bake for 25 minutes.

Step 13:  Eat!

Review

The casserole was pretty good. It was really tasty, the kale was soft (better than the last kale recipe), and all the vegetables came out well. The corn tortillas were crispy on top and I didn't particularly love them, but otherwise all the ingredients were delicious.

The only unexpected thing was that the casserole came out really watery. Most of the water did soak up by the time we went back for seconds, but it wasn't what we were expecting when we first spooned it out.

Would we make it again? (The true measure of a recipe.) I think we would, but maybe I would use only half the kale since it's not really that easy of a vegetable to digest. Maybe add some other vegetables and make a big vegetable casserole. So healthy and tasty!