Wagon Wheel Skillet Dinner

I love skillet dinners. They are a terrific way to get a home-cooked meal on the table with minimal cleaning up required, tend to be quick and easy to make, and are always well received. This Wagon Wheel Skillet Dinner hits all three of those points with ease. Of course, you can also use any other short pasta shape, but these rotelle seemed perfect to the southwest theme. If you like a saucier texture, more like a chili mac, feel free to double the salsa, or add a cup of crushed tomatoes.

This recipe relies heavily on the fresh chorizo for its seasoning, but you can always add additional cumin, chipotle, ancho, and Mexican oregano if your sausage is very mild.

Wagon Wheel Skillet Dinner

Serves 4

300 grams fresh Mexican-style chorizo
200 grams short pasta, such as rotelle/wagon wheel shape
2 cloves garlic
2 jalapeño peppers
1/2 teaspoon ground cumin
250 mL frozen corn kernels/niblets (about a cup)
250 mL prepared tomato-based salsa, heat level of your choice
3 tablespoons tomato paste
500 mL water or chicken broth/stock, plus extra water if needed
225 grams cooked black beans (eg. a 400 gram can, drained)
1 red bell pepper
Tabasco pepper sauce to taste
Shredded cheese of your choice, to finish
Cilantro and/or avocado to garnish, if you like

Set a large skillet to warm on the lowest burner setting while you prepare the ingredients. Remove the chorizo from its casing and chop roughly. Mince or crush the garlic and set aside. Remove seeds from jalapeños and finely chop. Measure the cumin. Measure out the corn and the salsa. Drain the black beans in a sieve, and rinse them well if using canned ones. Measure the tomato paste. It's a time-saver to heat the stock or water, but not essential.

Turn up the heat under the skillet, and let it come up to medium-high. Add the chopped, skinless chorizo, and fry it in its own fat, stirring periodically, until the meat starts to turn golden brown (about six to eight minutes). Add the minced/crushed garlic and stir through. Add the jalapeños and the cumin and stir through. Cook and stir for about a minute, and then add the frozen corn kernels, and stir them through, too. Give them about a minute on their own, and then add the prepared salsa and the tomato paste, and stir through. You can immediately add the pasta and the broth or water, and stir everything carefully together.

Bring the mixture up to almost boiling, then cover the pan and turn the heat to medium-low. Cook for about 10 - 15 minutes, stirring periodically, until the pasta is tender. The length of time is really going to depend on which pasta you are using, so test the pasta as needed. While the pasta cooks, dice the red bell pepper and grate the cheese.

When the pasta is almost tender, add the drained black beans and the diced bell pepper, and stir through. Bring the temperature back up to a simmer, and if it is looking too dry (it should be just slightly saucy) add extra water - maybe half a cup or so, as needed, to get a pleasingly consistency. Reduce the heat again, and simmer for another five minutes to heat the peppers and beans through. Remove the lid and sprinkle Tabasco sauce over the skillet, and then gently stir it through. Turn the burner off. Taste the pasta to confirm that it is cooked through, and if necessary add 1/4 teaspoon salt (probably not necessary if you have used broth - it depends on the existing saltiness of the chorizo, the beans, and the salsa).



Sprinkle with cheese and cover briefly cover again to let the cheese melt. Serve with cilantro if you like (we were out, and so we served it with diced avocado to squeeze in an extra vegetable.



This dish heats up very well in the microwave (add a bit of extra cheese if you're feeling frisky) and so makes an excellent lunch.

Black Bean Soup

This is based on a Mayan recipe for a very simple black bean soup with big, striking flavours. It is easy to cook the beans the day before, and start from there. It is quite filling as a main dish, but half-sized portions make a terrific starter. The soup shown in the picture above includes finely diced ham, which is a purely optional add-in to a recipe that is otherwise completely plant-based.

Black Bean Soup

Serves 4

1 cup dried black beans (no need to soak)
water to cover beans
5 cups water (extra) or stock of your choice
2 tablespoons canola or corn oil
1 onion, finely chopped
2 cloves garlic, chopped or pressed
1 teaspoon dried pequin (aka piquín) chiles, crushed
1 medium or large tomato, peeled, seeded & diced
1/2 teaspoon dried epazote
1/2 teaspoon cumin
1/4 cup dry sherry
salt
Freshly ground black pepper
cilantro to garnish

Part 1 - Cook the beans

Rinse the beans well - you don't want grit or dust in your finished dish. Also give them a quick look-over to make sure there aren't any cunningly disguised little rocks in there - sometimes you find little tiny stones or other debris in dried beans.

Cover the rinsed beans with fresh water, up to about 5 centimetres above the beans. Bring to a gentle simmer and cook until the beans are quite tender, stirring occasionally. This can take as little as an hour or as long as two or two and a half hours, depending on how old your beans are. Play it by ear, but don't let the beans boil hard, or they will split and turn quite mushy. Most of the time, I find that dried black beans are ready in just one hour. Once the beans are tender, you can add a little salt - if you will be using stock in the second part, make sure you don't over-salt at this stage. You can also skip salt entirely until Part 2 and then adjust to taste. Note that if you have hard water (or beans of dubious age), a scant pinch of baking soda added to the water when you begin to cook the beans will help soften them more quickly. You can make the beans a day ahead, and then proceed from this point when you want to serve them. If you will be making the soup at a later date, allow the beans to cool and then refrigerate in their cooking liquid. Once they are completely cold, you can freeze them if you like.

Part 2 - Make the soup

If you are making the soup straight away after cooking the beans, you can prepare and sauté the vegetables while the beans simmer in Part 1 above. 

Remove two thirds of the beans to a blender or food processor and puree. If you have an immersion blender, you can certainly use it right in the pot, but in that case you will want to remove about a third of the whole beans before pureeing (they will be stirred back in later, after the vegetables are added).

In a medium frying pan, preheated over medium heat, heat the oil and sauté the finely chopped onion, chopped garlic, and the pequin chiles until the onion is soft. Add the prepared diced tomato, epazote and cumin and stir until well blended. Add the onion mixture to the black bean purée and purée the mixture again until as smooth as possible. Combine the whole beans and the puréed mixture in the soup pot and add the five cups of extra water (or stock) and simmer gently, stirring frequently until the soup thickens and its components integrate. This takes only about five to ten minutes, in my experience.

If you want an even heartier soup, you could at this point add smoked tofu, diced ham, or diced chicken, as you wish, and simmer gently to heat the new additions through, stirring frequently. Remove any thick stems from the epazote that might have escaped the food processor. Add the sherry and stir through. Taste the soup and add more salt if needed, and it's ready to serve. Add cilantro to individual servings, or substitute finely sliced green onion if preferred.

I like to serve this with crispy baked flour tortilla-crackers, and sometimes a drizzle of contrasting hot sauce to add brightness. You can also top the soup with a scoop of salsa (preferably not cold from the fridge).

The soup also freezes very well, as do the cooked beans from Part 1.