Easy Recipe Bean Dip

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Easy Recipe Bean Dip

Easy Recipe Bean Dip

Here is a simple recipe that you can quickly make when you need to bring an item to some kind of gathering. OR, we will admit, this is a great item to snack on while you are watching a game or a movie some night… We were planning to bring some food to a meeting on Tuesday and we thought a bean dip would be just the item!  We also thought you might be interested in learning how to make one of these dips from scratch as well.  Are you reading the Food Revolution and looking for easy recipes to cook? Here is a good one!

Not only is Easy Recipe Bean Dip delicious, it is a great recipe for beginners because there are not that many main ingredients. Also, it is not hard to make (heat, stir & chill). Finally, it is flexible- you can make it a day or two before you need to serve it or it can be ready just an hour before hand.

Even better…. This recipe is very flexible and easily modified so  you can easily add more or less of an ingredient to make it “your Special Recipe Bean Dip” that everyone will ask you to bring etc.. They might even want you to Pass It On to them! Nice!!

By the way, all the main ingredients for this recipe you can easily find in your local Trader Joe’s or your favorite grocery store:

Main Ingredients:

  • 1 can  re-fried beans (pinto or black –use what you like)
  • 1 jar salsa (your favorite- we like Trader Joe’s Salsa Authentica)
  • Shredded cheese in a package (we like to use a “Mexican Blend” but Colby or Jack is also good)
  • Taco chips for dipping

Optional Ingredients:

  • Taco seasoning
  • Sliced olives
  • Sour cream
  • Sliced Avocados

Lets Cook!

Heat the refried beans in a pan on the stove.  When warm, stir in some of your favorite salsa. We add about 1/3 of a cup of salsa to the beans. Then add ½ a cup of your shredded cheese to the pan. If you are using the taco seasoning, add about a spoonful of that too.

Stir all this together, until everything is warm and blended.

Heat beans, salsa & cheese

Beans, salsa & cheese

Pour the hot bean mixture into a serving pan (we like to use a glass pie pan) and let cool. At this point you can let it cool in the refrigerator overnight and finish it in the morning.

Easy Bean Dip

Easy Bean Dip

When cool, you can spread a thin layer of sour cream on top, and then sprinkle some of that cheese on top of the sour cream.

Bean Dip

Bean Dip

At this point, you can add olives or avocado to the top of the dip if you are using these items.

Ta-da! That’s it! You are finished … and ready to eat!

Dig into this dip with some taco chips and enjoy.

Have fun with this recipe. The next time you make it, you can tweak it a little and make it your own signature dip….Use hotter salsa, more cheese, less cheese, more taco seasoning, sliced green onions or even jalapenos on top! (eeks!) Use whatever stuff you like.

That is the great part about cooking from scratch; you are able to add your own personal creativity to your recipes.

Enjoy!

Hey drop us a note to tell us what changes you made to this recipe to make it more your own…

Broccoli and Garlic in pan

How to make Oven Roasted Broccoli

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Broccoli and Garlic From Trader Joe's

Broccoli & Garlic

Here is an easy recipe that we make over and over again. In fact, it is Delaina’s favorite way to eat broccoli, and THAT  alone is saying something….

What is so special about it?

Well,  when you oven roast stuff (like fish, meat,  vegies etc…), the high heat sorta “sears” in the juices inside and usually gives it  nice brown-ish crusty coloring on some edges that just taste yummy.  This way also seems to concentrate the flavors in a very pleasant way as well.

Many of us are used to eating watery vegies that have been boiled (to death usually) or steamed, I know we used to steam our vegetables all the time.  Now to be fair, we still do steam vegetables on occasion, we just have a preferred cooking method for vegetables now, and that is oven roasted.

In fact, this method of cooking (Oven Roasting) is a great way to cook all sorts of vegetables.  So try this way the next time you are cooking broccoli and see what you think.  Then try it again with asparagus, green beans or carrots (just wonderful…).

Oven roasting works best with fresh vegetables. So here is an opportunity to cook those extra vegies that you get at the farmer’s market… You know… the ones you bought and bought  and then came home and said, “why did we buy all this XXXX”??    Yes, we do that too….

Warning: This is TASTY… You will love it!

Another bonus with oven roasting vegetables…. it is SUPER EASY.  One pan, in the oven for 30 minutes (more or less).  This way you can keep your eye on other more “needy” dishes on the stove.

Ingredients:

  • Fresh Broccoli, enough to feed the number of folks you are cooking for.
  • Garlic cloves (OK this is an optional ingredient, but it just tastes FANTASTIC with the broccoli)
  • Salt, Pepper, Olive Oil

Here is How to Make Oven Roasted Broccoli:

1. Heat the oven to 400 degrees.

2. Line a baking pan with aluminum  foil  -as large a pan as you need for the amount of broccoli you will cook so that the broccoli  will be in a single layer).

3. Rinse and trim the broccoli. This means I usually cut off any woody steams (maybe an inch or two from the bottom) and trim the broccoli into pieces so that the stems are no thicker than 1 inch. Dry with a clean kitchen towel to remove most of the moisture.

4. Separate the head of garlic into cloves. Remove the outer paper and cut the cloves in half, the long way. (so you have flat “coins” of garlic.

5. Place broccoli and garlic into a bowl, and toss with a spoon or two of olive oil until all the broccoli and garlic have a thin coat of oil.  Sprinkle  with salt and pepper and toss again.

Broccoli and Garlic in pan

Ready for the oven

6. Pour the broccoli and garlic into the foil lined pan. Place pan in the center of the hot oven. Let cook for 15 minutes, then stir the pan, and prick the broccoli with a fork to check the tenderness. Cook for 10 more minutes then stir and  check again for tenderness.

7. Remove when the broccoli is tender and has some brownish spots… and the garlic should also be brown in places and tender as well.

Cooked Broccoli and Galic from Trader Joe's

After Oven Roasting

OK so this is NOT our best photo, but I wanted you to TRY and see that the brown patches on the garlic and the fact that the broccoli is darker in some areas….  We gobbled up the whole batch of broccoli before we realized that this picture was a bit dark…. sorry…. I guess we will have to make another batch soon to try and get a decent photo….YUM!

8. ENJOY!

We hope you get a chance to try to make Oven Roasted Broccoli … or Oven Roasted Vegies of any kind, before it gets too hot to have the oven on in the kitchen for that long.

Let us know how it went, and what you thought of this recipe….