Holy Frijoles, Twinkly Black Bean Bake

When lunchtime rolled around on Sunday, I realized I didn't have a plan. No big surprise. I don't typically plan specific meals for specific days unless we're talking about something like Thanksgiving, in which case my plan is to be at mom's. But even when I don't have a plan, I generally have a clue. I was fresh out of those on Sunday too.

As I was rummaging in the cupboards I came up with something I thought would be passable, would use up some of the ingredients Scoob had leftover from making menudo during the week (yeah, I so didn't touch that), and wouldn't reveal to Scoob that I had still not gone grocery shopping.

What I ended up with was something far better than passable. Scoob even had seconds for lunch and wanted it again for dinner. I had the last bit of it for lunch at the office today. Of course, since I didn't think it was really going to be any good, I wasn't exactly writing down measurements or instructions, and I certainly didn't go to the trouble of giving it a name. So for lack of anything better to call it, I dub thee Twinkly Black Bean Bake.

Twinkly Black Bean Bake

Cooking time: 40 minutes
Prep time: 30 minutes

Ingredients

1 15oz can of black beans, drained and rinsed

1 15oz can of diced, peeled tomatoes

5 small corn tortillas (2 quartered, 2 whole, 1 cut into thin

in strips)

1 Tbsp ground cumin

½ Tbsp dried onion

½ Tbsp dried oregano

1 cup shredded cheese

2 serrano chiles, seeded and diced

1 jalapeño chile, seeded and diced

1 poblano chile

cooking spray

Directions

1. Char the poblano chile over an open flame then place in a sealed container to sweat for about 15 minutes. Once the pepper has had a chance to sweat, the charred skin should slip off easily. (This is the time consuming bit.) Seed and dice the poblano.
2. While the poblano sweats, preheat the oven to 375°.
3. While the oven preheats, dump everything except the tortillas, cheese, and cooking spray in a bowl and mix well.
4. Spray an 8in x 8in baking dish with the cooking spray
5. Place a layer of tortillas in the bottom of the dish using one of the quartered tortillas (fitting the corners into the corner of the dish) and one of the whole tortillas in the center. Spoon about half the contents of the bowl on top of the tortillas. Sprinkle about half the cheese over the top.
6. Repeat, making a second layer. Sprinkle the thinly sliced tortilla over the top.
7. Bake for 40 minutes.

Since I hadn't been grocery shopping, I didn't quite have a cup of shredded mozzarella like I thought I had (I only had about ¼ cup) and the only other cheeses in the house were non-fat crumbled feta and a hard Irish cheddar. I didn't want either of those to "take over" so I ended up using all 3 types of cheese. It was cheesy enough to taste the cheese, but it wasn't oozing when you cut into it.

I have to think this was pretty healthy—black beans=high fiber, high protein, low fat; no added salt; and not a ton of cheese.