Black bean salad

This is one of my favorite dishes to bring to a pot-luck. None of the ingredients had a face. The only mother these ingredients have is Mother Nature.

As much as I love to cook, I never watch the Food Network, not even for Nigella Lawson. Now that I’ve got you thinking about food porn, here’s the first recipe I’ve ever published here on this blog.

There are a lot of ingredients, but my instructions are detailed. It is incredibly easy to make and comes together quickly. The cayenne pepper and the green chiles give it a “pleasant kick.” However, that which is a “pleasant kick” to me might feel like a thermonuclear warhead detonation to others. For those of you who can’t take the heat, reduce or omit the cayenne pepper or use plain diced tomatoes. But how much fun is that?

Ingredients

1lb. of dry black beans

4 cups of vegetable broth

2 cups of water (use bottled or filtered water, remember my 10 tips?)

15oz can of whole kernel corn, preferably the “no salt added” variety

10 oz. can of diced tomatoes with chiles (I like Ro-Tel or Target brand the best)

1 cup of chopped red onions

3 limes

8-10 cloves of garlic

1/2 oz. fresh chopped cilantro

1/4 cup olive oil

4 tbsp. oregano

2 tbsp. sea salt

2 tbsp. ground cumin

1 tsp. cayenne pepper

Instructions

1. Soak the beans overnight, or for at least 8 hours. Drain and rinse.
2. Combine black beans, 4 cups vegetable broth, 2 cups water, 4-5 cloves of garlic (chopped), oregano, sea salt, cumin and cayenne pepper in a large saucepan. Bring to a boil on medium-high heat then reduce to a gentle simmer for 2 hours. Gently stir the beans as little as possible. You don’t want to break the skins. Your house will smell awesome for a few hours.
3. Toward the last half of the simmering process, add the olive oil.
4. Drain the beans and save the broth. Set the broth and about 2 cups of the beans aside. This is your bonus. You will have the beginnings of a tasty black bean soup.
5. Drain the corn and diced tomatoes. Save the water you just drained and add it to the soup base.
6. Combine the beans, corn, diced tomatoes, onions, the rest of the garlic (finely minced) and the juice and pulp from 3 limes in a large bowl. Mix together and enjoy!

Notes

This dish can be served cold. The flavor improves as it reaches room temperature.

You can wait until the dish is ready to serve before adding the chopped cilantro and lime juice.

There is no such thing as “too much cilantro.”

Garnish it with avocado slices. The fat content of the avocado goes great with the pleasant kick of the chiles.

Don’t let the corn scare you. There’s a total of 60 grams of carbs in the entire yield. If you believe that low-carb baloney, there’s plenty of fiber in the black beans to bring that “net carbs” number down significantly. Carbs are good for you. Do you realize you burn off the calories in 20 grams of carbs just by sitting on your ass for an hour?

If you’re worried about gaseous anomalies, add some tumeric and a pinch of sugar.

I’ve been tagged! One of my new favorite mom bloggers, Beth, over at “Open Seven Days a Week. Closed Sundays” has tagged me with this meme.

What is your current obsession: Vegetarianism

What are you wearing now: The Dad uniform – cargo shorts and comfy t-shirt with food stains. If you want to know specifics, the shorts are from “Circle Dot” and the shirt is Adobe.com SWAG.

Who was the last person you hugged: My friend Linda.

Who is the last person who kissed you: Depends on what kind of kiss you’re talking about. A friendly peck on the cheek – Linda. A full-on game of tonsil hockey – Gentlemen never kiss and tell.

If you were a tree, what tree would you be: Redwood.

What’s for dinner: A bean burrito.

What was the last thing you bought: Venti coffee at Starbucks.

What are you listening to right now: Pandora radio online.. As I type this, Leann Rimes covering “Crazy” is on.

What is your favorite weather: sunny, mid 70′s.

What is on your bedside table: Cell phone charger, lamp, dust.

What is your most challenging goal right now: Getting my butt to Tennessee.

Say something to the person who tagged you: I am blessed to have you in my life.

Suspend all disbelief. What is your dream job: Starting goalie for an NHL team.

Name the things you cannot live without: food, shelter, water, internet.

What would you like to have in your hands right now: My daughter’s hand.

Hot or Cold coffee: hot coffee, with heavy whipping cream.

What would you like to get rid of: A quarter million dollars in debt.

If you could go anywhere in the world for the next hour, where would you go: Oak Ridge Tennessee, with my daughter.

If you could have your portrait painted/made by any famous artist from any era, who would you choose: Annie Liebovitz.

What is your favorite book: The Art of War, Sun Tzu

Name one foreign country you’d like to visit: Sweden

Photo: judepics

Time, just like money, is a resource that must be managed properly. Time is the great equalizer. While there is no limit to the amount of money you can amass, there is a limit to the amount of time we have. We each have the same 24 hours each day, yet why do some people accomplish more?

When you start plugging the holes in your budget, you start to see the holes in your day.”Oh, I’ll just run to the store and pick it up,” turns into “I didn’t realize it takes 40 minutes just to buy a stick of butter!”

Getting In to a Scrum

One way I plug the leaks in my schedule is to employ the principle of “barely sufficient.” It’s a term I came to know while spending time with some software developers using Scrum at their workplace.

The idea behind “barely sufficient” is to do enough to be effective without compromising the end result. It is not permission to slack off and turn in a sub-standard performance. Adolescence may be a little early to introduce this concept to your children.

• It takes longer to use a label maker than it does to hand-write one neatly. The printed label is prettier, but the hand-written one performs the intended function adequately.
• Have you ever tried to design, print, and apply an adhesive label to a CD-R or DVD-R? Isn’t it a royal pain? Those blank CDs and DVDs you can print on directly do a little better. However, they often run on proprietary software that is difficult to use. For presentation purposes, it’s perfectly OK to go the extra mile. But for your own archiving and backup, a water-based marker made for writing on CDs is fine. (You do not want to use a solvent-based permanent marker. This will corrupt the data on the disc).

Some tasks do need to be performed with a degree of precision while other do not.  All process improvements eventually reach a point of diminishing returns. It takes experience to determine what that point is.

Recurring Tasks

“Barely sufficient” can also apply to the frequency of a recurring task:

• Do you really need to wash your car every week or is every-other-week OK?
• I maintain a closely cropped buzz cut instead of shaving my head. I can maintain the buzz cut by clipping my hair every other week while a slick chrome dome takes almost daily attention. A buzz cut is the least expensive hairdo to maintain in terms of time and money.

You can think of “barely sufficient” as the trade-off between speed and accuracy. You can also think of it as being frugal with your time. Just as you find where to trim the budget, you can find where to trim the time it takes to perform tasks. Save your “going the extra mile” efforts for those times when it’s truly necessary. Do baseball players sprint to first base after getting walked? “Barely sufficient” tactics will still accomplish your overall strategy.

What “barely sufficient” methods do you employ?

Mom and dad bloggers can get away with disappearing for weeks at a time. I’m anxiously awaiting updates from some of my favorite moms and dads in the blogosphere. Where are you?!?!?!

21st Century Dad is moving in a new direction which is following the course correction my life has taken. I will continue to write about topics of interest to all dads in addition to garnering fellowship with divorced and separated dads. An article about time management is coming up very soon. I didn’t want to spring that on you in the midst of the CTRL-ALT-DEL stuff without an introduction.

Seitan Worshiper

Seitan steak'n'cheese sandwich

As some of you know, I’ve been exploring vegetarianism and veganism lately. I made my own seitan for the first time last night. It’s incredibly fun and easy to make. An investment of just under $4 yields 3 pounds. How much meat can you buy for $4, or what kind of meat is available for $1.33/pound?

Seitan allows me to enjoy the gooey goodness of a “steak” and cheese sandwich. Thanks to Vegan Dad for the recipe.

My experimentation with tofu and now seitan will keep me busy in the kitchen for a long time. My mind is already racing with the possibilities.

Dad Blogs

My philosophy is to put more effort into fewer social media sites than spread myself too thin. You can stay very busy just working Facebook. Despite this, Dad Blogs has earned a bookmark in my browser.

As a social networking site, it has all the features you would want to use. My favorite feature of Dad Blogs is the Instant Chat. It’s like having our own private little Twitter.

Joe Schatz (you may know him as Joeprah) and Pete Janelle created this social networking site for dads and dad bloggers. It’s not a total sausage-fest. A few super-cool moms move the male/female ratio closer to that of any college with the word “Polytechnic” in its name.

You don’t need to have a blog to join.

New Friends

And now for some overdue link love. You may notice some of these as recent additions to the blogroll.

Money Smart Marriage – JW shares his insights on personal finance from a family point of view. Lots of good stuff here. Frugal date ideas aren’t just for husbands and wives. Dads paying child support feel the pinch too.

Open seven days a week. Closed Sundays. – Generation-X Christian woman, and a single mother of a wonderful little princess. I love her sense of humor. “I’m going to live forever or die trying!!!” HAHAHAH.  She also knows about proper care and maintenance of automobiles.

Savvy Stepmom – I thought back to when I was 24 and all the 24 year olds I’ve known since. Few are as savvy with money or as resourceful. This woman drives a car that doesn’t have a functioning reverse gear and gets by just fine.

The Broward County Transit Diet

Clean Air Hybrid

The popular perception in South Florida is that a car is a necessity. I’ve been doing OK with the bus and my bike. I take full advantage of Google Maps and Google Transit to plan my outings. One day, I ran errands all day and made it to a 7pm movie downtown, all without a car. I’ve lost 10 pounds after losing 3000 lbs back in July. The crunchy green part of my heart sings whenever I see the “Clean Air Hybrid” buses that BCT operates. Their buses run on a biodiesel too.

The increased physical activity has also helped my overall mood too. I don’t want to think about where I’d be without exercise, good nutrition, and medication.