Zesty Black Bean Pie

Crust
1/2 cup cheese crackers, it says to count 30 crackers, I guessed...
1/4 cup butter, melted

Filling
1 tbsp canola oil
1 onion, diced
1-2 cloves garlic, minced
1 tsp cumin
1 can black beans, drained and rinsed
1 can corn, drained
1 cup salsa
4 oz cream cheese

*Preheat oven to 350
1. Crunch crackers into crumbs, either by hand, blender or food processor.
2. Combine butter and crumbs. Press into pie plate to make the crust. Bake in preheated oven for 8 minutes or until golden.
3. Heat oil in skillet over stove, add onion until soft. Add garlic and cumin, while stirring cook for 1 minute.
4. Add bean, corn, and salsa. Bring to a boil. Add cream cheese, cook while stirring until it is melted and mixture holds together, about 2 minutes. Remove from heat.
5. Put the filling into the crust and bake for 10 minutes.

I got this recipe from one of my favorite cook books The Convenience Cook, by Judith Finlayson. It has recipes that use tons of canned and frozen food to make it go faster. It also gives ideas for different ways to speed it up more or to change the flavor some.

Acorn Squash Gnocchi

1 acorn squash, halved and seeded
2 cloves garlic, pressed
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 egg
1 cup whole wheat flour
1 cup white flour
7 cups water

1. Cook acorn squash. Either roast it in the oven for about 45 minutes or cook it in the micro with some water on the bottom of a pyrex dish and cut slits into it and cook for 5 minutes on high. Check and if not tender try another 5 minutes.

2. Scrape out squash with ice cream scoop or a grapefruit spoon works wonders too. Place into nice sized bowl.

3. Stir garlic, salt, egg and whole wheat flour into bowl. Add white flour in slowly, until you have a sticky, yet manageable texture.

4. Make gnocchi. Roll into ropes about the width the size of a quarter and slice of little chucks roll into small ropes and make it look like a ribbon for awareness of something. That's how mine looked you can try something else if you'd like.

5. Boil water. Add pasta one at a time to pot. Cook until they are totally floating on the top, and don't sink back down.

We had our with the Alfredo Sauce, but anything would be great.

Coming Soon

I promise I will post soon. If you notice it has been 2 months, guess how old Pete is? But as soon as I can I will add Zesty Black Bean Pie and Acorn Squash Gnocchi. Be Excited.