Chipotle Sweet Potato and Black Bean Casserole

I enjoy creative constraints.  I like keeping up with my daily personal challenge of making and eating vegetarian.  Healthy vegetarian.  Healthy, yummy, bodyandsoulfilledwithjoy vegetarian.  But every once and a while I encounter a challenge gets me all pumped up, stretched out, bracing myself at the starting line, the gun goes off and POW: my head whacks the track because my shoelaces were tied together.

My attempts of thinking up a good dish to bring to the NYC Food Bloggers Potluck this past Saturday were a relay of false starts - as if cooking for other foodies isn’t pressure enough!  There was preference noted by a guest for vegetarian food – hey, cool, me too.  Another guest didn’t eat cheese - vegan is cool too. And another didn’t eat nuts – no prob, that’s common enough.  No olives.  No eggplant.  Shoot, someone already had dibs on making a squash dish.  And, drats, soup and chili were already spoken for as well.

All I wanted was to present a hearty veggie dish that everyone could enjoy.  I wanted to inspire, impress, dazzle.  I wanted my fellow NYC Food Bloggers to think, “that Vanessa: not only does she have a wittily-named blog and great hair, she also cooks a delicious, homey, and equal opportunity casserole.”

Ah well. After thinking long and I hard I came up with this Chipotle Sweet Potato and Black Bean Casserole – none of the comprising ingredients were taboo and the result is tasty and even Fall-ish.

I even received compliments in the form of dirty empty tupperware from those hungry savages formerly known as my sisters.  They devoured the leftovers I brought home from the potluck even though they made me shop and pay for own groceries when it was not my turn.  And they didn’t leave any casserole for me.

Serves: 6 (or 2 savage sisters)
Time: 1 ¼ hours

Chipotle Sweet Potato and Black Bean Filling

1 large yellow onion, chopped
olive oil
3 medium sweet potatoes, peeled and cut into 1 ½ inch cubes
2 chipotle peppers plus 1 tsp of sauce (this makes it fairly spicy- add more or less to taste
2 (15 oz) cans of black beans, drained
1 (28 oz) can of crushed tomatoes
½ tsp cumin
½ tsp salt
2 bunches spinach

In a large wok or pot, start by wilting the onions in a little olive oil.  Add the cubes of sweet potatoes and cook for 15 minutes, stirring to cook evenly.

While the sweet potatoes are cooking you can mix up the masa crust and blend the chipotle peppers: with an immersion blender or a food processor, pulverize the peppers together with a tsp of the sauce from the can.

After the sweet potatoes are 95% cooked, add the following to the pot and cook until heated through: chipotle paste, drained black beans, tomatoes, cumin and salt.

Spray an 9 x 13” baking pan with a little spray oil and pour in the hot filling ingredients.

Wilt the spinach over the stove and arrange over the sweet potato filling.

Spoon the masa topping over the spinach and spread it lightly and evenly.

Bake for 45 minutes at 350 degrees.

Masa Crust

2 cups veggie broth
1/2 cup milk
8 tbsp melted butter or olive oil
2 ½ cups masa harina (I use this brand)
1 tsp baking powder

Mix all the ingredients up in mixing bowl and let sit for about 5 minutes before spreading onto the casserole.  The consistency should be wonderfully fluffy - like thick shaving cream!
 

This entry was posted on Wednesday, October 25th, 2006 at 8:57 pm and is filed under Casseroles & Baked, Any Season, Autumn. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.