Super easy & super yummy Bean Dish

With my sister being a nurse & working irregular shifts in the hospital, it’s sometimes challenging to make sure we still eat enough vegetables on daily basis & don’t end up eating too much bread-based meals. I think, especially when working irregular shifts, it is super important to ensure a balanced, complete diet for yourself. Therefore, I love to discover or create recipes, which are healthy & easy to cook, so that I can make sure my sister & I eat well, whatever the schedule may look like. The recipe below ticks most of those boxes. And so, we find ourselves turning to it time and again.

This recipe is & has been a favourite in this house for years now. I made it for the first time a couple of summers ago & have made it a zillion times since. It is full of vegetables & flavour. And because it is so easy to make, it is a perfect go-to-meal during busy weekdays. You won’t have to spend hours in the kitchen to produce this delicious, flavour- packed bean dish.

For the healthiest version of this dish, you can chose to leave the Doritos & cheese off. This is what I do when my sister takes the beans to work. When we’re eating it at home, though, we do prefer to top the dish with some natural Doritos & little bit of cheese. I wouldn’t recommend omitting the crème fraiche, because it adds a lovely creamy & rounded flavour to the whole dish. If you want, you could try to find a light version, though.

I hope you will love this recipe as much as I do. If you have any questions or comments, feel free to contact me in the comments below:)

• Servings: 3 to 4
• Time: approx 25 min
• Difficulty: easy
• Print

Ingredients:

• 1 tablespoon (sunflower) oil
• 1 onion, chopped
• 5 celery stalks, chopped into small pieces
• 1 red bell pepper, chopped into small pieces
• 1 yellow bell pepper, chopped into small pieces
• Chili powder, to taste.
• 1 small can (70g) concentrated tomato paste
• 1/8 litre (about 125 ml) vegetable stock˟
• 1 can of corn (300g), drained and rinsed
• 1 can of kidney beans (400g), drained and rinsed
• Pepper and salt, to taste
• 1 tablespoon crème Fraiche/ sour cream.
• Optional: handful of natural Doritos
• Optional: ¼ cup grated cheese

˟I use a quarter cube to make the stock.

Preparation:

• Heat the oil in a non-stick pan on medium heat. Add the onion and fry for about two
  minutes. Then add the celery, bell peppers, salt, pepper and some chili powder. I tend not to add too much salt, because the concentrated tomato paste and the stock will add quite a bit of salt to the dish at a later stage. I also go easy on the chili powder, but if you like your bean dishes spicy, feel free to add as much as you want.
• Fry the vegetables on medium heat until they start to soften, but still have a bite to them.
• Now add the tomato paste and the stock to the vegetables. Stir well.
• Add the beans and the corn. Stir well and allow the beans and corn to heat through. Leave to simmer for about 2 minutes.
• Turn the heat off and add the crème Fraîche. Give everything a good stir.
• Technically, your bean dish is done & ready to serve. But for a little less healthy, yet super yummy version of this dish, you can transfer the beans to a baking dish, cover it with a handful of Doritos and top it all off with some grated cheese. Place it in a preheated oven on 180°C for about 3 minutes. Keep a sharp eye on your dish, because the Doritos brown very quickly.
• Enjoy!

For more yummy recipes on this blog, have a look at my Delicious Documents in the category sidebar

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Remembrance day

Goodbye April

Goodbye April. Goodbye to your unpredictable nature. Your showers of blossom, rain & hail. Goodbye to snow on early mornings. Goodbye to sleepless, weary nights. You’ve confused me with your selection of moods to choose from. Yes, it seems fair to say, you caught me off guard. But I’m not blaming you. You’ve been no one but yourself; unconstrained & filled with surprises, just as you should be.

Goodbye Dear April, thank you for those wonderful weeks filled with quiet reflection & unexpected emotions. I have wandered through your days like one should wander through any springtime; looking up & up, marvelling over the colours, the abundance & all the reoccurring gifts of nature.
I aimed my camera, framed the moment & satisfied my ever expanding need to create memories. I packed a bag & hiked through the days, wrapping my coat around myself a little tighter, while your cold winds reminded me that you’ll do as you please. I read; an old favourite & some lighter books, allowing my thoughts to drift, while scanning the obvious. I watched new things, was on the edge of my seat & was left wanting much more. My shoes travelled to and fro, following me outside, where we passed both familiar & new places. I celebrated achievements. I questioned my purpose & my reason. I doubted myself, the way I always do. But I also picked myself & everything up again, the way I now know how to.
And all that while, I thought. I thought a lot. Thought of those I love & those who love me back. I thought of people I never met, would never meet, but who somehow managed to alter my thoughts all the same. Sometimes I cried. For all the obvious & the less obvious reasons. I tried not to mind & most of the time, I didn’t.

Goodbye April, thank you for keeping me from harm. Because it’s a confusing world we live in, where safety has become more of a gift than a given. It is place full of conflict, fear & famine. There is danger here, and there, and everywhere. Everything is moving, all the time. Yet some things seem to come to a standstill, like the world is holding its breath, wishing for the problem to go away while we close our eyes & wait for better days. But it hasn’t worked so far & something tells me, it never will. Looking at the world & the state we’re in, I feel grateful to live where I live, do what I do & be who I am. And there is less & less that I take for granted.

Goodbye Sweet April; let’s make way for May now. Let’s make room for a little more sun & a little less temperament. Thank you for the decorated trees & all the fresh green leafs. Thank you for the lazy hours, the warn soles of my shoes & for all the lovely reassurance, brought about by simple togetherness. Thanks for all the cups of coffee and, of course, thank you for the chocolate fondant which wouldn’t turn out, but still turned out fine.
I’ll leave you be now, I’m already running late. Take care & we’ll meet again.

Love, Naomi

Book: Due to a few days away, I managed to finish 2 ½ book this month. I must admit it where two Nicci French books & one book I have read over and over. But it was wonderful all the same.
‘Until it’s over’ & ‘What to do when someone dies’ by Nicci French
‘The History of love’ by Nicole Krauss
Series: Once upon a Time (always:) & How to get away with murder
Songs of the month:
Chasing Cars – Snow Patrol
Guaranteed – Eddie Vedder
Howling at the moon – Milow

(In case you missed it yesterday; here is an short impression I made about this month’s little getaway:)

Not today

The first of May; this means it’s actually time for my ‘goodbye April’ blogpost. But quite honestly, I don’t think it’s going to happen today. It’s noon, I haven’t slept a wink last night & my eyes already feel heavy with sleep. So, instead of trying to plough through last month’s memories, I think I’ll join my cat on the couch, curl up there with a book & a nice cup of tea.
To avoid any disappointment on your end; here is a little holiday-photo impression I created yesterday. Last month my sister & I went hiking on the Veluwe for a couple of days & this is what that looked like…I hope you like it!

(Of course, the update for April will follow as soon as possible.
Or at least as soon as it is done :))