Lunch Bunch Linkup: Beans and Legumes

This months Lunch Bunch turned out so fun!  We had a wide variety of different bean dishes that came.  Who knew you could do so many fun and different things with beans!

And here is the next part of all the fun . . . you get to linkup your own favorite bean dishes if you want!  C'mon, you know you want to!  Linky parties are so much fun and you get to meet a lot of other talented bloggers this way!

Here are the recipes from our get together.   I'm waiting for a few recipes from our gathering to be emailed from my friends still {HINT~HINT guys!} and I really wanted to get the linky up in case anyone else wanted to post and link up to us today.   I will update this post with the recipes as I receive them.  But at least we do have the pictures from our gathering for your viewing.  The pictures aren't the greatest since The Hubs took my good camera on a listing appointment that day ~ so enjoy the lovely camera phone pics!  :D

I hope some of these dishes will inspire you to use more beans in your cooking!


Fennel Pizza
What?  Pizza as the first bean dish?  Yep!  With white bean puree!
It looks intensive, but it's really not

Dough:

2/3 cup lukewarm water

1 pinch sugar

1 1/2 tsp dry yeast

1 tbsp olive oil

2 cups unbleached white flour

1 tsp salt

Pizza:

1 large fennel bulb

4 tbsp olive oil

2-3 garlic cloves, minced

salt and pepper, to taste

1 1/2 cups white beans cooked (or 15 ounce can, rinsed and drained)

2 balls of pizza dough {from above}

cornmeal, to sprinkle on pans

To make dough:

Stir together 1/3 cup water and sugar in a large bowl.  Sprinkle yeast over the mixture and let stand until foamy {about 10 minutes}.  Stir in the remaining 1/3 cup water, the olive oil, flour and the salt.  Knead the dough by hand on a floured surface for about 10 minutes or in a food processor for about 5 minutes.  Put dough in a deep, oiled bowl and turn to coat it with oil.  Let dough rise, covered with plastic wrap in a warm place for about 1 hour or until doubled in bulk.  Punch down the dough and form into four balls.  Each will make a serving size pizza.

To make the pizza:

Preheat oven to 400.  Trim the fennel bulb, leaving only an inch or two of the stalk.  Split bulb in half and cut out the hard inner core.  Slice the fennel thin and put in a bowl with 2 tbsp olive oil, the garlic and salt and pepper.  Toss to coat and put in a roasting pan.  Roast for 10 minutes, or until fennel is tender.  Keep oven on and increase to 450.

Meanwhile, put the beans in a food processor or blender with salt, pepper, 1 tbsp olive oil and 2 tbsp of water.  Blend until a chunky puree {just not totally smooth}.

Roll dough out on a floured surface to approximately an 8-inch circle.  Place on a baking sheet sprinkled with cornmeal.  Spread bean puree on to pizza dough and place roasted fennel on top.  Bake in lower third of oven for about 10 minutes or until crust is firm.  Drizzle with olive oil.  Cut into slices and serve.

Ham and Bean Soup

1 lb Great Northern Beans
Salt
Ham
Water
Salt and pepper, to taste


Rinse beans, cover with water.  Bring to a boil.  Cover, turn off heat and let sit for 1-2 hours.  Drain water and rinse beans, add salt as desired, then cover with water again.  Bring to a boil, then reduce to low.  Add ham ( I use an old bone from a spiral cut ham with some meat still on it.)  Let simmer until beans are the desired texture. Remove bone and cut any large pieces of ham as needed.  Season to tatse.  3-6 hours.

Lentil Soup

12 C water

2 Tbsp Chicken Bouillon
2 cups lentils
1 chopped onion
1 1/2 Tbps each  Rosemary, Basil and Oregano
Vegetables of your choice

Bring the water, chicken bouillon, lentils, onions, herbs and vegetables to a boil ( she had put in chopped onion, carrots and broccoli).  Boil for 20 minutes and simmer for about 45.   Delicious and Nutritious!

Sundried Tomato Hummus
and Homemade Pita Chips

Sun Dried Tomato Hummus

2 cans garbanzo beans, rinsed and drained

1 clove garlic, crushed and minced

1/4 cup sun dried tomatoes in oil with their oil

1-3 Tbsp olive oil, to taste

2 tsp lemon juice

2 tsp salt

1/4 water ( this can vary, add as mixture is being processed to make the desired consistency)

Combine all in the food processor, adding water to thin to desired consistency

Pita bread

1 1/2 tsp Yeast

1 1/4 cup warm water

1 tsp salt

3 cups Flour

Dissolve yeast in warm water ,add the rest of ingredients, let rise about 35-45 min then divide into 6-8 balls and roll out into pita flat bread. Let sit and rise a bit before putting them in preheated oven at 500 for 5-6 minutes.

Rice and Bean Bar

1 small onion

2 tbsp olive oil

2 cloves garlic

1/4 tsp cayenne pepper

1/2 tsp chili powder

2 cans black beans

Rice

Toppings like:  cheese, avocados, tomatoes or pico de gallo, cilantro, sour cream you name it. 

Sauté small onion in olive oil. Addt the cloves of garlic, Cayenne pepper,  Cumin, and chili powder.  Add two cans of black beans ( drained) and 1/2 cup of water.   Simmer 10 minutes.  Serve over rice.  Pile it on with whatever toppings you like and your kids won't even know they're eating beans.

Black Bean Brownies
We had two versions of brownies that came.
Both recipes were fairly similar in technique though.

1 15 oz can black beans
1 brownie mix

Rinse black beans, refill can with beans and clean water.  Pour into blender and puree.  Add to brownie mix.  Bake according to package directions.

  
Moist Cocoa Lentil Cake

2 cups boiling water

1/4 tsp salt

2/3 cup washed lentils

1 1/2 cup white sugar

1 cup olive oil

4 large eggs

1 tsp vanilla

2 cups sifted flour

4 tbsp cocoa

1 1/2 tsp soda

1/2 tsp salt

Add lentil and salt to the boiling water.  Cover and simmer for 40 minutes.  Drain, reserving liquid.  Add 1/4 cup of liquid back to lentils and puree in blender or food processor.  Preheat oven to 350.  Grease and flour a 9x13 inch pan.  Mix sugar, oil, eggs and beat well for 2 minutes.  Add vanilla and pureed lentils to creamed mixture.  Sift and add remaining ingredients.  Beat for an additional 2 minutes.  Pour into prepared cake pan.  Bake for 30-35 minutes.  Cool, frost and eat.  Makes 12 servings.

Ok, now over to you!