Рецепт Black Beans & Sweet Potatoes
This month's Improv Challenge ingredients are beans and bacon. Coincidentally, August is Bacon Month in the United States (who decides these things?). Needless to say, I was full of grandiose bacony-plans. And then I thought it might be more healthful to focus on the beans and not the bacon. And then I developed a completely unseasonal craving for baked potatoes (seriously, let's not talk about the number of baked potatoes I've eaten recently) and I ended up with this:
Yes, that's a sweet potato filled with black beans, salsa, and bacon and topped with a dollop of 0% Greek yoghurt, chives (because the cilantro composted itself before I got around to taking a pretty picture), and more bacon.
I did (briefly) toy with the idea of wrapping the sweet potato in bacon before baking it -- I've seen pictures of bacon-wrapped sweet potatoes on Pinterest -- but I worried about what would happen when I split the baked potato to fill it with beany goodness. Would the bacon all fall off? Also, frankly, wrapping the potato in bacon seemed like too much fiddliness!
While the recipe only uses six strips of bacon, I freely admit I baked an entire package of bacon for it. It's just as easy to bake the whole package as half and, more importantly, the more bacon that was cooked, the more likely some would be left for the potatoes. I used lower-sodium bacon, because ... I can't taste the difference. Use whatever bacon you like, obviously.
Black Bean Salsa Bacon Sweet Potatoes
Serves 4
Ingredients
- 4 sweet potatoes
- 6 strips bacon [Oscar Mayer Lower Sodium]
- 14½ oz can low-sodium black beans, drained and rinsed [Goya]
- ½ cup diced red onion
- ¾ cup black bean and corn salsa [Desert Pepper Trading Company]
- 2 tsp salt-free Southwest-style seasoning blend, divided [Penzeys Salt-Free Arizona Dreaming]
- 5 oz cup 0% plain Greek yoghurt
- Cilantro or chives for garnish, if desired
- Additional bacon for garnish, if desired
Directions
Whisk together the yogurt and 1 tsp seasoning blend. Refrigerate until needed.
Preheat oven to 400°F. Arrange bacon slices on a small jelly roll pan lined with foil. Set aside.
Jab each sweet potato several times with a fork (this can be very therapeutic). Place the sweet potatoes on another jelly roll pan lined with foil.
Put the pans in the oven and bake for about 15 minutes or until the bacon is crisp. Remove bacon and drain on paper towels. Reserve one tablespoon of drippings from bacon pan.
Leave sweet potatoes to bake for 45 minutes longer or until the potatoes are tender when you squeeze them.
Meanwhile, heat the bacon drippings in a skillet. Add onion and cook until onion is translucent. Add beans, salsa, and remaining 1 tsp seasoning blend and cook until bubbly.
Crumble four strips of bacon into beans. Reduce heat to lowest setting ("warm" on mine) and set aside until potatoes are done.
Cut a slit down the length of each potato. Gently squeeze each potato until it pops open. Divide bean mixture between the potatoes, topping them with yoghurt and cilantro. Crumble remaining two strips of bacon and sprinkle over potatoes.
Since I'm the only one eating these (The Husband loathes both bacon and sweet potatoes), I've been taking the potatoes to work and they reheat fine in the toaster oven.