Veg*n Cooking and Other Random Musings: Quesadillas de Frijoles Negros Refritos y Arroz (Refried Black Bean and Rice Quesadilla)

Thursday, May 29, 2008

Quesadillas de Frijoles Negros Refritos y Arroz (Refried Black Bean and Rice Quesadilla)

I hope I got the translation right. If anyone out there knows Spanish and wants to correct me, please, by all means, do so! I am essentially trying to 'learn' Spanish via eating Mexican food. :-)
These were really, really good. I can't believe, seeing how much we love Mexican food in my house, that I've never made refried black beans until now. What's wrong with me?! Refried black beans rock!















(Notice how I sneak in greens in the oddest places? How else can I make sure Brett eats his greens? Gotta be a bit sneaky sometimes, and it helps that spinach is seriously one of the best veggies there are, period!)

Frijol Negro Refrito y Arroz Quesadillas

Refried Black Beans:
2 cups black beans, cooked
2 serrano peppers, seeded and minced
1 red bell pepper, seeded and minced
1 habanero pepper, seeded and minced
splash veggie broth
juice of half a lime
garlic powder
onion powder
cumin
chili powder
Mexican oregano
dash of white pepper
salt

Heat a few tablespoons of water in a small skillet. Add the peppers and cook for 10 minutes.

Meanwhile in a seperate bowl, heat 1 tsp coconut oil. Fry the black beans until they begin to get mushy and split.

Transfer everything to a large bowl and combine with a mixer or potato masher.

The Rest of the Filling:
1/2 cup of corn, cooked
1 cup long grain brown rice, cooked
2 cups fresh spinach, chopped

Mix corn and rice together in a bowl.

Heat a few tablespoons of veggie broth in a small sauce pan. Add the spinach (in batches if necessary) and cook until wilted. Drain any excess liquid.

The 'Other Stuff':
tortillas

Layer beans, rice and corn, and spinach in warmed tortillas.

Fry if desired and top with guacamole and Tomatillo-Jalapeno Green Sauce.

We will be making these again very soon!

'Til next time.

19 comments:

Anonymous said...

Haha, that's such a great way to learn Spanish!!!

Erin said...

Refried Black Beans are delicious! I've tried the recipe in Yellow Rose Recipes and liked it a lot, but I'm sure no matter how you make them they're good.

Bianca said...

I think I tried refried black beans once for a recipe, and they were quite tasty! This looks delicious. Love beans and rice!

More on the kohlrabi (in case you get some in your CSA box): Be sure to peel the bulb before chopping it up. The outer skin is really tough, but I didn't know so I chopped it all up and threw it in my stir-fry with the skin on. I ended up removing all the kohlrabi bulb and cutting the skin off each piece and then adding them back in...totally a pain in the ass. But it tastes good.

LizNoVeggieGirl said...

I'm not sure about "refrito," but the rest is definitely translated correctly!! Don't worry about it :0)

What a great way to sneak in those greens - love it!! Your Mexican dishes are always tantalizing!!

Anonymous said...

Omg I'm drooling over that quesadilla. Yum! Spanish is one of the summer school classes I'm taking, maybe I'll try eating more Mexican food to help me learn. :)

ChocolateCoveredVegan said...

Haha, you need to learn Spanish, since you're the Mexican-food queen! I love refried black beans, but have never made my own. Now I want to try.

Yes, the dog on my cake was my Molly :o)

Unknown said...

It sounds like you have found the ideal way to Learn Spanish. What would happen if you had to learn a language that did not have such a fantastic food culture?

Anonymous said...

I'm drooling all over my poor keyboard! This looks muy delicioso! And good luck on your avacado-fast. I try to restrain myself with them for the very same reason, but they are soooooo good!

Lizzy said...

Ohhh my mouth started watering when I saw that spinach, I'd happily steal Bretts portion, ha ha!

Wee, great that the lentils are actually the right ones =D I think this weekend will contain lots of pattie baking =p

Very interesting what I read about your avocado experiment. Now I feel kinda bad because I bought one two days ago and I usually never have avocado.
And you did inspire me to be more cautious. I don't know how I manage to do it, but my trash is always SO full SO fast... I really have to work on that.

The book you're reading sounds very interesting! I'm still waiting for The China Study and Eat to Live to arrive.

Rural Vegan said...

I think it loosely translates to "really freaking delicious!" I've purchased refried black beans, but never made them myself yet. Thanks for the recipe!

Anonymous said...

I love refried black beans. It just tastes so much better than canned ones or the "regular" ones you get at the restaurants. Plus, if you make it at home, you get to know exactly what goes in it.

J said...

Romina - I thought so!

Erin - I know, I love them. It seems like it would be hard to make mashed black beans taste bad, they just plain rock!

Bianca - Beans and rice are two HUGE staples in our diet, perhaps the most important ones, actually.

Thanks for the advice on the kohlrabi, I seriously would have had no idea what to do if I came home with some. I'd have been at a loss.

Veggie Girl - Thanks for the tip. I thought so, it's been a way of getting greens in and Brett either hasn't minded or hasn't noticed. In his defense though, he loves spinach as much as I do, so our eating a whole bag (or more!) of spinach in one sitting is not out of the ordinary.

Thanks! :-)

Rach-ums - Hahahaha! Seemed like a good way to me. For some reason, I took German in high school (no foreign language in college), I should have taken Spanish, but felt is was 'too easy'. Don't ask, it would have been a lot more useful in this country than German.

Chocolate Covered - I think so too! That way I can go to Oaxaca and impress them with some vegan mole and be able to tell them about it in Spanish! Ok - long shot, but I'm hoping to have a vegan mole one day that rivals the 'real thing'.

You SHOULD try refried black beans, they are TOO good.

You should really consider opening up a bakery or better yet a place that makes cakes for weddings, parties, graduations, etc. You have real talent.

And Molly, what a cutie, those kind of dogs look so wise. Is she a schnauzer?

Cookiemouse - I don't know, I don't think I would want to! Though I know English and am not particularly impressed with our 'food culture', so I guess I should expand my linguistic knowledge.

Shellyfish - Hehehe. Muchas gracias! See, I'm trying! ;-)

It's really hard, avocados are literally one of my FAVORITE foods. But I do really well 'eating locally' aside from that. If I can make it through a month, I will be very proud. Gotta get over myself and my own wants in a lot of ways still. I hope this experiment will teach me to savor the more 'exotic' things I eat more, and not have them as often. Things like that should probably be seen more as a 'luxury' item. I know, I am trying not to think of how good they are.

Lizzy - Hehehehe! He might want to arm wrestle you for it.

I hope your burgers turn out well. I think the spice aspect is pretty versatile, if you aren't feeling Mexican-ish, then spice it up however you please. Oh, and I am going to be trying my hand at black bean burgers this weekend - my send-off to avocados for the month.

Don't feel bad. I'm not planning on giving them up completely. However, if I don't do something like this, it will be hard for me to have them in moderation. I think that things that come from outside of your foodshed should be used sparingly. I'm hoping (as I noted to Shelly) that after this, I'll enjoy them more but have them less.

Brett and I used to be the same way with trash. We would produce SO MUCH for just two people, it's insane. We just stopped buying so much pre-packaged food, recycle what we can (do you guys have a recycling program), and try to reuse whatever packaging we can. I reuse old applesauce, marinara sauce, etc glass jars to store things like cornstarch, bulk nuts, oatmeal, egg replacer and so on. I use my receipts from the grocery store to make new grocery lists or to-do lists. Just little things like that have cut down on our waste significantly. And like you said, we got more cautious in our purchasing. We stopped by junk, and also buying so much food that inevitably some would go bad - we used to waste a lot more food than we do now. Now, most of our garbage is in the form of food scraps, which I wish so much that we could compost, but living in an apartment makes it difficult.

I think you are so awesome for simply being willing to look at yourself and your behaviors and realize that there is room for improvement. It was a bit of a blow to the ego when, a few years ago, I realized that - well I sucked in terms of what I was doing for the environment and my own body/well being. It's no fun realizing that there are things about youself that should be changed, but looking closely at myself, my actions, my interactions, and so on, has allowed me to grow as an individual.

I have been wanting to read Eat To Live as well. Stuffed and Starved is a highly fascinating read, it really is, I think it takes a more holistic look at the paradox of our world have about equally as many starving as there are overweight. And what's more - now the poor are more likely to be overweight. Very food book, I recommend it.

Rural Vegan - HAHAHAHAHA! These were really good and very simple to make - can't beat that.

J said...

Leng - You posted your comment pretty much at the same time I was posting my responses!

Refried black beans are wonderful - though I do love the traditional refried pinto beans a lot as well. You are so right, when you make something at home, you get what you want. You can make it as spicy as you want too! ;-)

J said...

(And Lizzy - sorry about all the typos, I should really slow down typing when I respond to people.)

Chile said...

Two other greens that would be good with that are quelites (the Spanish name for Lamb's quarters) and verdolaga (the Spanish name for purslane). Nopalitos would be a nice touch, too. (Prickly pear pads. Slimy like okra, but with a nice lemony crunch.)

Alicia said...

Your translation is pretty good! I would say: Quesadillas de frijoles negros refritos y arroz.
I admire you for willing to eat less avocados, even if it's hard.
And I hate how everything is packed in the supermarkets! sometimes it's very difficult to generate less garbage! In Germany is actually OK because they're very concerned, but in Spain it's a nightmare, every vegetable or fruit is packed with a ton of plastic!
I loved your tip for writing lists in your receipts :-) I use the envelopes from the letters I get!

ChickPea said...

Hey! Just letting you know I changed the name and URL of my blog! Here's the new address:
http://broccolihut.blogspot.com

J said...

Chile - Those are great suggestions. I might be in luck finding those greens here - but the prickly pear pads might be more difficult to come by around here. I really wish I could work with cactus though!

Alice - Thanks! I will update the translation.

Thank you, I think it will be hard, but they ARE just avocados, I think I can survive. I just have to keep reminding myself of that. :-)

I hate that about supermarkets here as well, even the organic stuff, is packed into cardboard packaging, and wrapped with plastic, how environmentally friendly is that?

Good idea about the envelopes!

Chickpea - Duly noted, I changed the link.

Buy Generic Viagra said...

This is perfect because this is like a Mexican food, I lived long time in Mexico and I used to eat these recipes, so I want learn to cook them.