I missed last weeks Try It Tuesday, not because I didn’t have something to write about but because time was not on my side. Lets get back on track shall we? 🙂
Jamie Oliver’s Brazilian-style Chipotle Black Beans- it is a stew with chunks of sweet potato and sweet red peppers. Lemme tell ya, none of the “sweet” veg took away from the spicy which maybe I would have clued in to ahead of time if I had noticed the two little jalapenos on the bottom area of the front of the box. Apparently Jamie has a warning system that I didn’t notice, oops!
This is a side dish, something else I also didn’t notice and according to Jamie is best served with “crispy griddled chicken thighs, brown rice, fresh greens and a spicy tomato salsa or in a fluffy baked potato with grated strong cheddar and a dollop of soured cream”. Despite Jamie’s so thoughtful suggestions I went my own way and ate it as a stand alone stew – I’m such a rebel! 😉 lol
It heats up the same way all frozen meals do, take the tray out of the box, puncture the plastic top, pop in the oven for a while and boom! Food that took no effort on my part! This one takes 40-45 minutes at 350F. I could have microwaved it but I am already cheating by heating up a frozen meal, putting it in the microwave is just taking this whole lazy “cooking” thing too far.
Not the prettiest thing when frozen, and I kinda failed at the whole piercing the plastic thing but meh, it all worked out in the end, shrug.
I don’t know about you but I think that looks goooooood! Maybe it is because I am a sucker for sweet potatos, and stew, and easy cooking…who knows? After it is pulled out of the oven you are supposed to let it sit for a couple minutes and that helps it thicken up a bit. I left it a little longer than the box suggested because I like stews to be quite thick and it worked, it also made it so I didn’t have to blow on the spoon before every bite which was nice cause ya know, burning my mouth is not a thing I enjoy.
It however lost some of its charming, yummy look once put in to a bowl, sigh. Now it looks like green mush, or slime, or something icky. It tastes way better than it looks, honest!
I tried some of it on its own and it was too spicy for me, sadness. I like spice but there has to be flavour along with the spice, not juuuust spice. So I added some ranch dressing to it, weird yes, but it works, lol, and it helped. If I had cheese in the apartment I would have topped it with that and I bet that would have cut down just enough on the spice while adding flavour and take it up that extra notch.
The entire package fit in to one of my small bowls so if you are eating it on your own it is a good size to be a meal by itself but if you are sharing it you’ll definitely need something else to go with it -perhaps one of Jamie’s suggestions?
The Amazing Shrinking Woman 
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