tortilla espanola y frijoles negros

Lunch featured a local-licious salad.

Leftover sauteed squash, micro-steamed green beans, and lettuce, ALL from the farmer’s market. Dressed with the oil from the veggies and lemon juice.

Aaaand this strata-ed piece of loveliness:

Okay, maybe only lovely to me (and wow, apologies for the state of my nails!). But wowsa delicious. Tortilla espanola!

This is another one from Healthy Cooking for Two (Or Just You) which is increasingly turning into one of my favorite cookbooks (love those library book sales!)

Are people familiar with tortilla espanola? It’s almost always on the menus at tapas places. Lest the name confuse you, it’s nothing like a tortilla: it’s a potato-egg pancake, basically, but instead of shredding the potato like for a latke, you leave them in slices.

Anyway, made traditionally it is heavy on the eggs and REAL heavy on the oil- it’s just kind of a hot mess, you kind of fry everything and have to deal with getting potatoes properly cooked but keeping the eggs soft but anyway this cookbook promised a less fatty recipe and also an EASY one, which I loved.

So first you boil up some spuds in a little bit of water. Some of them you reserve:

And the rest you blend with the cooking water (love this! I hate boiling vegetables and then dumping all their nutrients down the sink!) as well as your eggs.

You also add some onions (next time I will IGNORE the recipes advice and NOT cook burn them on high).

And then heat up some olive oil in an ovenproof skillet and throw in the whole mixture (my potatoes weighed a bit less than the recipe called for, so I threw in a few radishes! Thus, the pink)

Put the whole thing in the oven and bake until a bit browned and set.

 

Apologies for the bad pictures, but it really is tasty.

See how the underside gets all browned and nummy in the skillet?

It is, like so many good things in this world, particularly succulent with some nice hot sauce!

The first night we made it we served it with my mom’s totally delish pear and cabbage salad. So easy. Pear plus cabbage. Dressed with honey, lemon juice, and oil.

Coming up to tonight, where we all inhaled multiple bowls of my black bean soup because it is just so friggin’ good. It’s in Favorite Recipes but just to review.

Base:

 

(onion, green bell pepper- cooked in oil til soft)

A little oomph:

 

(garlic, chilies of your choice- today I used a bigggg poblano- added to the mix and then please COVER so your eyes don’t get murdered by the chili, kay?)

A little more oomph:

      

(lotsa the first two, a hint of the last)

Then you add your beans (I used a whole 16 oz. bag of dried beans- it keeps so well and just keeps getting more delicious and freezes beautifully etc. etc.) and cover with water (this can take awhiiiiiiiiile which is why it’s prudent to boil the water in a kettle before adding it) and get em all boily.

And my secret ingredient that brings the delicious:

Sofa king good. You can either do it in a crockpot overnight (as I did) or on a stovetop or whatever. Honestly, with these ingredients, it’s gonna be good.

The best part of black bean soup is that it is a fun and wonderful vehicle for a variety of toppings. Tonight I went with homemade tortilla chips and (ugly but still delicious) avocado.