Another recipe

I tried another recipe tonight. I give you pineapple black bean enchiladas*. I've been sold on the idea of pineapple in Mexican food thanks to the Hula Hut in Austin. (Hawaiin Tex-Mex? It sounds weird until you try the fajitas with pineapple in them. You'll be sold too!) So without further ado**:

Pineapple Black Bean Enchiladas

Ingredients:

• 2 tsp olive oil
• 1 medium onion, chopped
• 1 red bell pepper, chopped
• 1 x 20 oz can pineapple tidbits in juice, drained with juice reserved
• 1 x 15 oz can black beans, drained and rinsed
• 1 x 4.5 oz can chopped green chiles
• 1 tsp salt
• 1/2 cup fresh cilantro, chopped
• 3 cups shredded cheddar cheese
• 1 x 10 oz can enchilada sauce
• 8 tortillas (8-9 inch)

Directions:

1. Preheat oven to 350*F. Spray a 9x13 baking dish with cooking spray.
2. In a 12-inch nonstick skillet, heat oil over medium heat. Add onion and bell pepper; cook 4 to 5 minutes or until softened.
3. Stir in pineapple, beans, chiles, and salt. Cook and stir until thoroughly heated.
4. Remove skillet from heat. Stir in cilantro, and 2 cups of cheese.
5. Spoon and spread 1 tbsp enchilada sauce onto each tortilla. Spoon about 3/4 cup vegetable mixture over the sauce on each. Roll up tortilla and place seam-side-down in baking dish.
6. Repeat step 5 for all tortillas.
7. In a small bowl, mix reserved pineapple juice with remaining enchilada sauce. Pour mixture over the entire surface of enchiladas in dish.
8. Sprinkle with remaining cheese.
9. Spray large sheet of foil with cooking spray. Place sprayed side down over baking dish and seal tightly.
10. Bake 35 to 40 minutes, removing foil during the last 5-10 minutes of baking, until cheese is melted and sauce is bubbly.
11. Serve each enchilada with sour cream and chopped cilantro (if desired).

My notes:

• This was really tasty. The pineapple is what makes this dish special, for sure.
• I used about half the cheese that the recipe called for. I made sure to have plenty for the top; it tasted fine, though I imagine more cheese in the tortillas would just make it gooier, which is always nice, but not wholly necessary. (Especially since I was trying to keep it somewhat light. Though really, I just didn't want to buy more than one package.)
• Make sure you use a big skillet. Seriously, by the time everything was in there, it was FULL.
• For some reason, I didn't use all my vegetable mixture (maybe I wasn't liberal enough in filling the tortillas?). I plan to eat the leftovers of that either plain, on a salad, or with chips or something.
• I don't think 1 tsp of salt is nearly enough. But then again, I like salt...
• I made sure the foil was really tightly sealed around the edges. One of the problems with so many enchilada recipes is that the tortillas dry out. I was worried about that happening, but with the foil being tight, it didn't.
  

As I cooked this, Sister Porter admired it and noted at least twice how much she thought she and her daughters would love that recipe. She snuck a forkfull of the vegetable mixture from the skillet, and gave it a big thumbs up. Likewise, President Porter told me he thinks I should cook dinner for them sometime.



* Some of you (especially if we've been roommates) may wonder why I would ever make an enchilada recipe that is NOT the famed chicken enchiladas. Well, I mostly tried it because this is black bean week, and I couldn't resist the idea of the pineapple!

** Admittedly, I should have taken the picture before taking my serving out. Oh well. Also, I should have taken a picture of the vegetable mix in the skillet, because that was what looked the best!

Two New Recipes

One thing I like to do is find and try new recipes. During our last few months as roommates, my last roommate, Michelle, and I would even have nights when we'd experiment with new recipes and make dinner for each other. I've tried a lot of random recipes over the years, and some have been good, others not so much. (Fortunately, Michelle and I never had many--if fact, I can't remember any--of those recipe clunkers.) I go up and down in the frequency with which I try new recipes, usually relating to my motivation and schedule.

I have been motivated to find some new recipes this week, for two, completely different, though not wholly incompatible, reasons:

1. I want to try eating something besides Cheerios for breakfast that is still easy and filling.
2. I've recently fallen in love with black beans.

The internet is such a beautiful thing. I've spent the last night or two scouring it for potential recipes. I've made a short list, and tonight tried just two of them. They were each a great success, so I will share them both.

I give you Exhibit A.

Black Bean Lasagna

Ingredients:

• 1 egg
• 1/2 cup water
• 28 oz jar tomato pasta sauce
• 12 uncooked lasagna noodles
• 1 3/4 cup lowfat cottage cheese
• 2 1/2 cup shredded mozzarella cheese
• 2 x 15 oz can black beans, drained and rinsed.

Directions:

1. Preheat oven to 375*F.
2. Over low heat, simmer tomato sauce, black beans, and water.
3. Meanwhile, in a small bowl combine cottage cheese and egg and set aside.
4. In a 9x13 inch baking dish, place 1 cup of the bean/sauce mixture on the bottom of the dish.
5. Place 3 of the uncooked noodles, side-by-side, on top of the sauce.
6. Spread 2/3 cup of the cottage cheese mixture evenly over the noodles. Top with 1 cup of the bean/sauce mix. Top with about 1/2 cup mozzarella cheese.
7. Repeat two layers of noodles, cottage cheese, bean/sauce, and cheese.
8. Place the remaining 3 lasagna noodles and pour the remaining bean/sauce mixture all over it. Top with the remaining mozzarella.
9. Cover pan with foil and bake at 375* for 30 minutes.
10. Remove foil and continue baking for another 15 minutes.
11. Remove from oven and let stand 15 minutes before cutting.

My notes and comments:

• This was great! (Turns out black beans instead of meat in normal lasagna is really tasty!)
• The original recipe called for ricotta cheese, but I used cottage cheese.
• Also, I ran out of the cottage cheese mixture before I put on the last layer of noodles, so I put just plain cottage cheese in that last layer. If that happens when I make this again, I will probably just leave off the last layer of noodles.
• I used Prego sauce, but I doubt it matters what kind you use.

Now I give you Exhibit B:

Cranberry Applesauce Muffins

Ingredients:

• 1 cup unsweetened applesauce
• 1/3 cup vegetable oil
• 1 egg, beaten
• 2 cups all-purpose flour
• 1/2 cup white sugar
• 1 tsp baking soda
• 1 tsp cinnamon
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 1 cup fresh or frozen cranberries, chopped
• 1/2 cup pecans

Directions:

1. Preheat oven to 350*F. Grease and flour a muffin tin, or use paper liners.
2. In a small bowl, mix together applesauce, oil, and egg.
3. In a large bowl, combine flour, sugar, baking soda, cinnamon, and salt.
4. Make a well in the center of the dry ingredients and pour in applesauce mixture. Stir until just moistened. Fold in cranberries and pecans.
5. Spoon into muffin cups, 2/3 full.
6. Bake at 350* for 25-30 minutes, or until toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean.
7. Cool in pan 2 minutes before removing.

My modifications and notes.

• Used 1 1/4 cup applesauce and 1/4 cup oil. Next time I make this I will use 1 1/3 cup applesauce and leave the oil out completely.
• Used 1 cup whole wheat flour and 1 cup white.
• I used brown sugar instead of white.
• Added a bit extra cinnamon.
• Didn't use pecans.
• I couldn't find fresh or frozen cranberries at the grocery store, so I used whole berry cranberry sauce. (I actually dumped out the can in a bowl, sifted through it and pulled out the berries. Though I threw in a couple spoonfuls of the jelly part too, for good measure, I guess.)
• Made half the batch with cranberries, and the other half with frozen blueberries.
• Only baked them for 24 minutes. Keep an eye on them.
• These were awesome! They are very moist and tasty. It's a very good base muffin recipe and I'm going to try future incarnations of it with different types of berries. (Maybe raspberries? Mmm...)

The Porters got home just as I finished up cooking. (And I had already cleaned the entire kitchen and started the dishwasher. Surely I looked like superwoman. :) ) They already had their own dinner, but tried both my dishes. And they really liked them! So that's three endorsements for you.

Stay tuned, next week I will be making more of the recipes on my short list and will report on them. (I hope you like black beans too...)

Astronomy Word of the Day

This week and last week I've been teaching my class about stellar evolution -- about the births, lives, and deaths of stars. I'm happy because it's my favorite topic.

Today's lecture was entitled "The Bizarre Stellar Graveyard." We talked about the weird remnants that are leftover after a star dies. I taught them about white dwarfs, neutron stars, and black holes.

Of course, black holes is a fun topic to teach. Everyone is relatively interested in what you have to say. (One student asked me last time excitedly, "When are we going to talk about black holes?!" I told him, "Next time..." Sadly, he wasn't in class today.)

And I got to teach about something everyone is excited to hear about: spaghettification. My favorite part of the lecture was these two slides, as I told them what would happen if you were to fall into a black hole:


Here's what's going on in this scenario.

Remember, the force of gravity depends on distance: if two objects are closer together, there will be a stronger force between them than if they were further apart.

Tidal forces happen when the gravitational force is stronger on one side of an object than the other. Tidal forces between the Earth and the Moon cause the tides in the ocean.

Spaghettification is tidal forces to the extreme. Because the force at your feet (closer to the black hole) is stronger than the force at your head (further from the black hole), you are stretched long and skinny (like spaghetti). You are spaghettified. As you fall into the black hole, these tidal forces are so strong that you will not survive, but rather ripped to shreds. (Yikes!)

In other words, the black hole wins.

The term isn't used in the textbook, but I knew it was definitely worth mentioning. I challenged them to use it in casual conversation this week. And I challenge any of you to do the same. :)