on precious harvests - dark days
I have just started trying to grow beans for drying the past couple of seasons, and this year I tried a lot of new varieties but only have a little bit of each one. (As I suspect other gardeners do--sometimes I don't invest the space or have prolific luck the first year I try out a new crop). I love that the DD challenge gives me an excuse and occasion to use these precious harvests I have--the lone jar of beans that I want to use, but have a tendency to hoard.
Tonight's meal: black bean veggie quesadillas. The beans are Cherokee Trail of tears, a cool heirloom variety which basically look like a black turtle bean. I soaked a generous cup during the day and they cooked up wonderfully in less than an hour. I added them to a skillet after cooking up some onions, peppers, garlic, and sweet corn (all either from our garden or farmer's market (corn and peppers were frozen). A good tip I learned somewhere a few years ago--Jalapeno and Serrano peppers freeze great whole, and I just slice them up frozen and add them to a lot of dishes. Cheese was a new cheddar we tried from the market last week--we weren't thrilled with it as a hard cheddar as it turns out-- but it was great for melting...
Tortillas were homemade with 50% wheat flour from our local vendor. (please note: I have made much more attractive (and ROUND!) tortillas, but don't you know when you've got to photograph them they don't turn out as nice?) Condiments were homemade/homegrown salsa, and homemade yogurt out of milk from a local dairy.
Hi there. I used some precious Cherokee Trail of Tears beans from my lone jar for my Dark Days challenge last week too! Mine went into chili.
ReplyDeleteYour quesedillas look absolutely delicious, imperfectly round tortillas and all!
Thanks, your chili looked good too!
ReplyDeleteI've found our home frozen (or stored) veggies are great for mexican dinners, it's easy and fast, and pretty healthy too.