Black Bean-Tortilla Soup

After my first attempt with Tortilla Soup, it was little disappointing that I ever tasted from the package of dried stuff and I added the water to make a soup. Not mentioning the causes of f**ting things from eating this soup, I had decided to make my own homemade tortilla soup with real beans, real spices, real corn and other things that I am so familiar with. In past few years, I started to make soup with beans and always had good results with flavors and textures but with protests from my family, I cut it down for while.

Black Beans-Tortilla Soup

2 Tbsp butter
1 cup onion, chopped
1 tbsp cumin seed, or powder
4 garlic cloves, minced
3 1/2 cup Chicken broth,
3 tomatoes, chopped (about 2 cups)
1 1/2 cup corn kernel, frozen
4 fluid ounce chile peppers, green dices
15 fluid ounce Black Beans, canned
1/2 cup, fresh Cilantro leaves
2 cups tortilla chips coarsely crushed
1/2 cup monterey jack cheese, shredded

Melt butter in the large non-stick pan. Preheat over medium heat. Add onion, cumin seeds and garlic to pan. Cook and stir about 5 minutes or until tender. Carefully add chicken broth, tomatoes, corn and chile peppers. Bring to a boil; reduce heat. Cover and simmer about 5 minutes or until corn is tender. Stir in black beans and cilantro; heat through.

Divide crushed tortilla chips among 6 soup bowls; ladle soup over chips. Garnish each serving with cheese.

Recipe variations to add: Chicken, Pork, Sour Cream, Jalapeno Peppers, Hot Sauce, Avocado, Salsa, and etc. (I like to add the lime juice to enhance the soup, it work well with cilantro. Sour cream and Jalapeno peppers are my favorite topping beside cheese.)

Brown Bag Lunch and leftover foods

Sometime, I found that I have good leftover that my family rarely touched them after dinner. Well, sometime, I set Wednesday as leftover dinner or Friday for my family to eat up whatever are sitting in refrigerator. Always had fun to see the reaction from my family when they asked me, "what's the dinner for tonight?" I answered, "Tonight is the leftover dinner, let get over it and enjoy." I will see my daughter groaning over good morsels on plate. My wife will trying to avoid the dinner time by working on computer or chatting on phone...I do my job by dragging her to dinner table and made her to eat. It is about saving money instead of letting food wasting in refrigerator.

I don't want to say "most time" that I could not find right words but--every week, I will take some leftover for my lunchbox to work along with vegetable crudites or nice salad with homemade dressing. Nice lunch meat on nice bread. Roasted chicken with roasted vegetable salad if I have any. In the morning before I head for work, I will make something for my daughter after she made a request for her brown bag lunch. Always enjoyed to talk with my little girl about what food she want in her bag--beef roast sandwich, chips, chocolate cookies, and a candy bar or others. I will make suggestion in place of sweets, I might say, apple, banana or some healthy snacks.... I never won a discussion with her and I gave up easily right after her protests.

I Goggled brown bag lunches ideas but all I got is: for children, for school and for children...... Well, I hope I can work on brown bag lunches ideas for people who work during the day or night, who want to save their money on lunches and who need more creative juices to jazz their lunches up. I spent little time to think about what I can use for my lunch box and check to see what good leftover I have in refrigerator.

Here are the list of Lunchbox Ideas (Actually, it is my own ideas and I got nice results in insulated lunch bag with blue ice pack inside, including some food can be microwave for your lunch):

Smoked Trout Spread, crackers and fresh veggies
Any Kind of Panini with green salad with good homemade dressing
Any kind of sandwich with chips or good salad
Roasted chicken--any parts--and homemade pickled vegetables
Hummus, salami, cheese, crackers and some Greek olives or all kind of olives mixed together.
Sliced roasted beef or pork with Wasa crackers and marinated vegetable salad
Antipasti Salad
Chicken Liver Pate with Crackers and fresh veggies with ranch dip
Sardine ( I am not kidding!) with rustic bread and butter, with pickled vegetables
Nice Lasagna--homemade.
Beef Stir-fry with noodle
Some leftover from last night restaurant
Ok, I can continue to list all food that I used for my brown bag lunch ideas and, most time, it worked well with my insulated lunch bag--I recommended the blue ice package and it will keep very cold for four hours or more depending how cold your food are.

Everyday at work, I had observed some people who brought their brown bag lunch and show their food.... I was little troubled (or distressed) by some interesting sights--can of Campbell soup nuked in microwave, Jenny Craig-craps, some pizza pockets, some frozen burritos, and other whatever special kind of diet in boxes. I don't want to criticize them for their lunches because I knew that they have their choice of lunches. Other than that, I always had fun when I see someone burned their food in microwave--that's their lunch. I hope they learn to read the instruction about nuking their food. See, I had good fun out there.

For while, I was looking for Szechwan beef and Broccoli stir fry recipes after I was thinking about one nice small restaurant I ate beef and broccoli with little spicy sauce. It is very good. I like to eat out in there, nice wholesome food as their owner tried to put heavy emphasis on natural and organic food he cooked with. Very good food and very filling.

I found something very amusing through Google, I found many recipes that have same ingredients--sometime I wondered if they are really serious or just lazy to copy other recipe and make their website look so professional presentation to readers. Take a look at same recipe through first five pages in Google:

1 lb Beef flank steak
2 Tbsp Reduced-sodium soy sauce
4 tsp Oriental dark roasted-sesame oil, divided
1 1/2 tsp Sugar
1 tsp Cornstarch
2    Cloves garlic, crushed
1 tbsp fresh ginger, minced
1/4 tsp Red pepper pods, crushed
1 small Red bell pepper, cut into 1-inch pieces
1 pkg (8 ounces) frozen baby corn,defrosted
1/4 pound  pea pods, julienned

It is not what I am thinking about beef and broccoli stir fry. I HATE baby corns. I don't know what are there something wrong with people who write their recipe--I wondered if they actually cook with baby corn? Are they actually cooked baby corns and eating them? Pretty disgusting!

Sometime I will make fun of a recipe or some websites that copied a recipe from others. That's one reason I put a nice and funny picture of other kind of Betty Crocker on a happy pill.

Ok, here is a recipe that I found from Epicurious.com as it should look as it should be and it should taste that way.

Stir-Fried Beef and Broccoli
Serve 2

For the beef
2 teaspoons soy sauce
1/4 teaspoon sugar
1/4 teaspoon salt
3/4 pound boneless sirloin, cut across the grain into 1/4-inch-thick slices


For the sauce
1 tablespoon cornstarch
1 tablespoon soy sauce
1 tablespoon medium-dry Sherry or Scotch
1/4 cup chicken or beef broth or water
1 teaspoon sugar
2 teaspoons Oriental sesame oil

3 tablespoons vegetable oil
1 tablespoon minced peeled fresh gingerroot
1 tablespoon minced garlic
a 4-inch fresh red chili, seeded and minced (wear rubber gloves) or 1/2 tablespoon dried hot red pepper flakes
1 pound broccoli, cut into flowerets and the stems peeled and cut into 1/2-inch-thick cooked rice as an accompaniment

Prepare the beef:
In a small bowl stir together the soy sauce, the sugar, and the salt, add the beef, and let it marinate for 20 minutes.

Make the sauce while the beef is marinating:
In a small bowl dissolve the cornstarch in the soy sauce and stir in the Sherry, the broth, the sugar, and the sesame oil.

Heat a wok or large heavy skillet over high heat until it is hot, add 2 tablespoons of the vegetable oil, and heat it until it just begins to smoke. Stir-fry the beef in the oil in batches for 1 minute, or until it is no longer pink, and transfer it as it is cooked with a slotted spoon to a plate. Add the remaining 1 tablespoon vegetable oil to the wok, heat it until it is hot but not smoking, and in the oil stir-fry the gingerroot, the garlic, and the chili for 30 seconds, or until the mixture is fragrant. Add the broccoli and stir-fry the mixture for 1 minute. Add 1/3 cup water and steam the broccoli, covered, for 1 1/2 to 2 minutes, or until it is crisp-tender. Stir the sauce, add it to the wok with the beef and any juices that have accumulated on the plate, and cook the mixture, stirring, for 2 minutes, or until the sauce is thickened and the beef is heated through. Transfer the mixture to a heated platter and serve it with the rice.

Garlicky Jelly

One of my friends gave me her jar of garlic jelly. Ok, she don't like the garlic but knew I like to have garlic on almost everything. I asked her if she have a recipe. "Google" is what she told me to search.
Hmmm. I have seen many duplicated recipes on so many websites so I picked one that I had kind of agreement with the recipe--read and visualized how it tasted. This recipe is about canning your own jelly--I usually skip this, put jelly in jar and let it cool until room temperature. Sweet Garlicky. "Why wait?"
Very good with Turkey (not deli meat), Pork and Beef. Last time I have jelly on my pork sandwich along with dijon mustard, mayonnaise and bacon. Very nice flavor with garlicky jelly and I wolfed it down within one minute.

GARLIC JELLY

½ cup finely chopped garlic
3 cups white wine vinegar (5% acidity)
1½ cups water
6 cups sugar
2 pouches (3 oz. each) liquid pectin

Combine garlic and 3 cups of the vinegar in a 2 to 2 ½ quart pan. Bring to a simmer over medium heat; simmer gently, uncovered, for 15 minutes. Remove from heat and pour into a glass jar. Cover and let stand for 24 to 36 hours at room temperature. Pour through a fine strainer into a bowl, pressing garlic with the back of a spoon to squeeze out as much liquid as possible. Discard residue. Measure liquid - if necessary, add additional vinegar to make 2 cups or boil liquid to reduce to 2 cups.

In a heavy-bottomed 8 to 10 quart pan, mix garlic-vinegar with water and sugar. Bring to a full rolling boil over medium-high heat, stirring. Stir in pectin all at once, return to a full rolling boil. Boil 1 minute, stirring constantly. Remove from heat and skim off foam. Ladle into hot, sterilized jars, leaving 1/2 inch head space. Wipe rims; top with hot lids, and firmly tighten bands.Process in boiling water canner for 5 minutes.

Got an inspiration with Bacon.

One of days that I got inspired after a light bulb of idea brightened and proceed to make bacon-wrapped pork loin thanks to the blog, The Bacon Show. Also, I had visited some websites through the Google and found more about the bacon-wrapped food My wife think that I am weird--I kept on telling her that I have seen some recipes that using bacon to wrap meat, chicken, and seafood. Why not, wrap the pork with bacon?

I began to work on pork and bacon for first time and it come out of oven perfectly for first time. Not bad. I served this with real homemade mashed potatoes and nice cumin-flavored corn kernels. I got nice compliments from my family--especially from my dog (dripping juices mixed into his dog food, he gobbled all within 45 seconds and very satisfied with his meal).

Bacon-Wrapped Pork Loin

One package of bacon strips (your favorite brand)
Half Pork Loin
Salt and Black Pepper

Wrap the pork with bacon strips as the picture show how it should be. Seasoning lightly with salt and pepper. Bake at 350 F for about 1 1/2 hours or until internal temperature is 160 F.
Very good, I promise you.














Take a look at cooked meat picture. I am sort of proud of what I am trying to accomplish on first try. You should see my wife's face when she got home from work, smell the bacony air in my home. First words as she come in, "Nice smell, bacon?"--if you understand in Sign Language.





























I am glad that I did take my time to take pictures of what I had made the meal. One of days I surfed through Google to find more about Bacon. I found and I have to say about Other fascinating Blogs about Bacon:
Bacon Unwrapped
Bacon Today
Totally interesting stuff you can do with bacon when you have hearty appetites. Don't tell your doctor how much you eat bacon, ok?