Reader Submission: Chrissi's Spicy Bean Dip

All the pretty colors...

(Before we get to this recipe...have you taken a look at the finalist recipes for the Fit Frappe recipe contest? Yes, ok. Well...have you voted yet so that YOU have a chance to win some Fit Frappe? Ah...you didn't, did you? Go do it now! We'll wait.)

 Alrighty then! So anyone that knows me knows that Chrissi had me at the word "spicy." I love spicy everything and anything! I love spicy so much I ate spicy through TWO pregnancies and now have some spicy-loving divas (as evidenced by the fact that I got away with putting not one but TWO habanero peppers WITH SEEDS in my last batch of my famous hot dog chili!).

Our crazy, insatiable appetite for spicyness aside, here's the recipe Chrissi sent in:

Chrissi's Spicy Bean Dip

1 can black beans
1 can corn
1 can black eyed peas
1 can green chili's
1 can diced tomatoes- (Chrissi usually buys whatever is on sale but tends to look for the ones that have onion and green peppers with it.)
1 red onion- diced
1 green bell pepper-diced
8 oz of Italian dressing.  (Chrissi prefers Ken's Steakhouse Lite Italian)
Pickled Jalapenos- optional.  I've used fresh before but find the pickled ones add a little more kick.

Directions:

Drain and rinse the beans and corn and add to a large mixing bowl.  Drain the tomatoes and add the the bowl.  Open the chili's and add to the bowl and mix together.  Then dice the onion and green bell pepper and add to the bowl with the beans.  Stir in chopped the jalapenos and add 8 oz of Italian dressing.  Stir and let sit over night in the fridge.  

Chrissi serves these with toasted pita chips that she makes herself.  She also serves this on a salad, with eggs and in wraps.

Thanks for this great recipe, Chrissi! If YOU have a great, WLS-friendly recipe to share, hit me up! I love to see what's going on in your kitchen.  

Name This Dish (really...I need you to name it!)

Then, of course, you should make it. Cuz it's yummy!

So...I should say there are only a scant few situations in life where your girl Nik feels totally zen. During a REALLY intense workout (those who are exercise buffs know that when you are in the zone that is as close to the divine as you can get) and when I am experimenting in the kitchen.

And it's not even about eating per se. I love every element of food. I love the colors. I love how it smells. The feel of it in my hands. Watching how things react to heat, cold, mixing. I. Just. Love. food.

This is probably a good thing since I keep trying to throw recipes at you all, right?

Anyway, you may remember a week ago I posted my beautiful farmer's market haul for the week. If you don't, here it is again:

Well I got some Swiss chard, which I'd never eaten before so I asked for suggestions and got a lot of them. But see the thing with me is that I like to...how shall you say...play with my food. And the result was beautiful. Absolutely gorgeous. One of these days I'm gonna get a better camera to convey JUST how wonderful some of this food is...but I digress. I have a problem.

I dunno what to call this dish. So let me just tell you what's in it and how to make it.

Nik's As Yet Unnamed But Totally Yummy Stuff

Ingredients

1 large onion, halved and sliced into strips
1 pkg smoked sausage or andouille, sliced into half circles
1/2 tbsp extra virgin olive oil
1 large clove of garlic, minced
1 large bunch Swiss chard, large stems removed and torn into pieces
2 whole tomatoes, diced large (not canned, use fresh!)
1 tsp Herbs de Provence (I've been on a kick lately)
1/8 tsp cayenne pepper (omit if you don't like a kick)
2 tsp lemon juice
Salt and pepper to taste
10 oz. cannelini beans, drained and rinsed
2 tbsp tomato paste

Directions:

In a pan sprayed with non-stick, begin to sweat your onions (cook until soft) over medium heat. After about 3 minutes, add your sausage and stir.

Once the sausage begins to brown and onions are soft, add olive oil, garlic and Swiss chard, stirring as you go along. let that all cook until the chard softens.

Add in the tomatoes, lemon juice and spices and let that all go about 5 minutes or so, until chard has turned a deeper shade of green (at this point it has greatly reduced and resembles cooked spinach).

Add the cannelini beans and stir. Reduce heat and simmer about 10 minutes.

Finally, stir the tomato paste into the mixture and stir until fully incorporated. What you should end up with is a yummy pan of love that looks something like this:

My goodness this was GOOD! You ever cook something and you have a hunch it'll be good but you don't know for sure? This. Was. GOOD!

Help me name it! Leave suggestions in the comments please!

Lady of the Rings

Certain popular websites for girls who happen to be hungry claim this recipe, but it's been around forever. I got it from somebody who got it from somebody who got it from somebody else which is probably the same place THAT chick got her recipe from. She was just smart enough to market it.

That being said...

I was in the mood for onion rings yesterday. This gets me over the hump. One word about these onion rings though. They don't pair so well (to me) with ketchup. Considering the "breading" it all comes together to be too sweet. I much prefer a nice Greek yogurt based ranch dip for these.

At any rate they are notoriously easy to make and have the added benefit of fiber which MANY of us desperately need (and you know why so don't make me say it...I'm trying to keep this blog about food only!)

Fiber CRUNCH! Onion Rings

1 large onion, sliced into quarter inch rings (a piece of advice...going back to the sweetness issue. Don't use Vidalia. A nice white onion works well)
2 cups Fiber One Original cereal crushed into crumbs (do it in a food processor)
1/2 c. liquid egg substitute
1/4 c. Parmesan Cheese
salt, pepper, garlic powder, onion powder to taste

Directions:

1. Mix cereal crumbs with spices and parmesan cheese
2. Set up a dredging station with the liquid egg substitute in one bowl next to the cereal mixture
3. Dip each ring into egg, then cereal and repeat.You should have a thick coating and good coverage.
4. Lay out on a sprayed cookie sheet and bake at 350 for 15 minutes

YUMMY! I also do mozzarella sticks this way (thanks Shari for that recipe!) using light string cheese. My children LOVE these things. And I can have my little plate of them and not feel like I wrecked my whole day.

Notice some in the picture are lighter than others. This is because my 24 year-old "I don't eat that healthy shizz" brother insisted I make him some using bread crumbs. I snapped a pic of all the ones that I made but the darker ones are the ones I ate. But I have a little secret. Come close...closer...so he doesn't hear you...i used whole wheat bread crumbs and a little bit of Fiber One anyways! Bwahahahahaha!!! He loved every minute of it.

Here's some other ways we like to use Fiber One:

Rocky Road Pie
Protein Cheesecake
Apple Brown Nikki
Zucchini Fries

Carbquik Pancakes (part one)

Interesting name for a post about pancakes, innit?

You all have seen my Carbquik pancake recipe right? Well...I am always looking to improve my recipes and techniques. To that effect, I was browsing stuff online and came across some Carbalose flour. I'd seen it before but wasn't quite sure I wanted to try to use it. I mean Carbquik already has everything you need in it to make just about anything, right?

Well, sorta... Some of my recipes came out wonky because of whatever was in there and so I wanted to at least TRY Carbalose flour to see if some of those issues were caused by the additives to the baking mix.

(Sidebar: If, at this point you are asking yourself "what's the difference between Carbalose flour and Carbquik?" think of the difference between plain old all-purpose flour and Bisquik or...pancake mix, etc.)

So I have this really awesome recipe for fluffy pancakes that I have made a gagillion times for my daughters with regular flour (and, I admit, I've had more than my fair share of bites) so I was DYING to try it out with the Carbalose flour.

Here's the recipe I used:

Nik's Old-Fashioned, Low-Carb fluffy pancakes

1 c. Carbalose flour

2 tbsp Splenda granular

1/2 tsp salt

2 tsp baking powder

4 tbsp Blue Bonnet Light (or "I Can't Believe It's Not Butter" or whatever butter substitute you like...or if you get down with butter...use butter...)

1 c. milk (yes I said one cup...)

1 large or extra large egg, beaten

Directions:

1. Sift Carbalose flour into a bowl and add remaining dry ingredients. Mix well.

2. Mix wet ingredients well.

3. Tip went into dry and stir. Batter will be thick.

4. Using a 1/4 c. measure, ladle batter onto a hot griddle (set on medium flame).

Now here is the interesting part. You ladle them out and you...wait. Seriously. Go get a magazine. The essential thing I learned about these pancakes is that "lower and slower" works best. So don't rush it! Go get your latest copy of Food Network Magazine and read all about what thrilling new things Paula Deen is doing with butter. Ok, back to our regularly scheduled cooking...

5. When many, many bubbles have burst on top of the pancakes, flip them gently. Now resume your magazine reading...(in all seriousness, I think I cooked them upwards of 4-5 minutes each side...but this was helpful actually because I was cooking a multi-course breakfast and that gave me ample time to prep other things).

When done, transfer to a plate or, preferably, into a baking pan that is in the ove which is set on "Warm."

A few of these babies...some turkey bacon...you've got yourself a fine meal.

I do want to address one question I get a lot. While I am TOTALLY not opposed to protein pancakes...I don't like them myself. I am at the point where I get enough protein from other foods to absorb eating a regular pancake. These pancakes have the added benefit of a ginormous amount of fiber (which is something I do not regularly get enough of), so if you want a protein pancake recipe, alas you won't find one here, but check out my girl Shelly for many, many, many recipes.

Not your mama's french fry...

Ok...so here's the thing about carbs. You can't avoid them. Why? Because your body uses every nutrient you take in for some purpose. In our former lives maybe we didn't move so much so our body used it to store as fat for a "rainy day." Nowadays, maybe we move a little more and our bodies use it for quick energy.

Newbies, pay attention to the following phrase: with starches, the ONLY way to achieve low-carb is to have lots of fiber. This bears repeating: with starches the ONLY way to achieve low-carb status is to increase the fiber. Food companies are not your friend with the nutrition labels. They use words such as "100% whole grain" and "low-carb" very liberally. Check the label. If it has 30g of carbs but only 2g of fiber...it ain't low carb even if it says it is 100% "whole grain." Yes, whole grains are better for you. They burn slower than white carbs, but they are still carbs and should be budgeted accordingly.

All that being said, we need carbs but we ESPECIALLY need fiber. I don't get enough most days but I'm working on it, slowly but surely. The above is a yummy way I seek to achieve fiber.

Raise your hand if you've been to a restaurant and had the fried zucchini? (raises hand) It was gooooood wasn't it? It was nice and yummy and salty and crunchy and all the things that are wonderful about fried foods. Well...this recipe is not that. Because fried in a restaurant always means more fat than you want to take for the amount of calories.

So, here's what I make. I like it because I can get my kids involved in the making (kids love dredging for some reason...) and at the end of it you have several yummy snacks that you can bag up for your lunch box.

Nik's interpretation of "fried" zucchini
makes 4 servings

Ingredients:

1 small zucchini, sliced into strips that are about a quarter of an inch thick and 1.5-2 inches long
1/2 c. Fiber One twig cereal pulverized
1/4 c. Parmesan cheese
1/4 c. soy flour
salt, pepper, season all
2 egg whites

Directions:

1. Combine soy flour, salt, pepper, and season all and put on a plate

2. Combine crushed cereal and parmesan and set on another plate

3. Beat egg whites slightly and then set in a bowl

4. Dry zucchini strips with a paper towel then dredge in flour, egg, cereal. Repeat egg and cereal if you do not get good coverage

5. Lay out on a sprayed cookie sheet then bake at 375 for about 15 minutes

With these I like to have some sort of dipping sauce. My current favorite is bacon ranch. This can be done one of two ways:

Quickie method: combine 2 tbsp of lowfat ranch dressing with 1 tbsp imitation bacon bits
More involved method: mix a container of unflavored Greek yogurt with dry ranch mix to make up a batch of dressing. Mix 2 tbsp of that with 1 tbsp imitation bacon bits (this method has more protein than the quickie version)

So there you have it...this snack does NOT boast great protein numbers but it is one way to get your fiber and a serving of your vegetables for the day, which is important!