Pastéis De Feijão - What came of Black beans and Coconut

I got lucky and was chosen to compete in the Foodie Fight over at www.foodiefights.com. Well they choose two ingredients for the competitors to use (cannot be an protein, but can be anything else). The coming Monday we are to "ready our posts" and submit our favorite picture of the dish.

Well this is my first Foodie Fight, so naturally they came up with something interesting... Black beans and coconut! I have to admit to all the other competitors that I was one of the people (maybe the only one) that suggested black beans, so for that ingredient everyone can blame me, but it did make for some interesting ideas (at least for me). At first I couldn't think of anything, then I remembered seeing black bean brownies before. I was going to make those with coconut in them and on top, but when I saw that Tasty Eats at Home made some black bean brownies of her own, I figured I needed to come up with something else because I was sure at least one other person would make something like them.

I looked around via google for "black beans and coconut" and it came up with a lot of black beans and coconut rice and things like them. So I figured those were out. The hubby suddenly had an idea. As some people may remember, my husband is Portuguese, as in from the western most country of Europe, Portugal, Portuguese. Well he remembered a food he would eat fairly often called Pasteis De Feijao (the spelling with the accents in the title are the correct way of spelling it). They are a bean tart, normally made with white beans and slivered almonds. I of course changed the white beans to black beans and changed the slivered almonds to shredded coconut (an actual coconut by the way).

The original recipes (yes more than one as one forgot to mention any milk/water for the crust of the tart) we found for it were in Portuguese, so I had to convert all the measurements from grams/ml to cups/tablespoons as well as my husband needing to translate all the words for me.

Crust Recipe (your favorite pie crust would work here as well)

3 cups (250 grams) All purpose Flour (I used whole wheat)
1/2 (125 grams) cup butter
2 egg whites
1/2 - 1 cup of milk or water

Filling for Tarts
1 can drained/rinsed black beans (The recipe said 50 grams cooked beans assuming they used dry beans)
3 cups (250 grams) sugar (I used half sugar half splenda)
3/4 cup (60 grams) coconut
1/2 cup water
6 egg yolks

Mix flour, egg whites and butter (use it cold and cut it up into smaller pieces). Add in liquid, but make sure it's not too much, just enough to make the dough. Should be the consistency of a pie crust. Set to the side and rest. I put mine in the freezer to make it easier to handle (I basically treated mine as you would a pie crust though it didn't say to do so in the original recipes we were looking at).

Take your black beans and turn it into a paste, by either using a blender of sorts or take a spoon and mash them up with the back of the spoon till they are all about the same consistency (looks like re-fried beans almost), set aside. Put the sugar/splenda into a pan with the 1/2 cup of water, and bring it to a boil. Allow to boil for 3 minutes and take it off the stove. Mix in bean paste and shredded coconut/coconut milk (if you have it from the coconut). Set back on stove and let boil a couple more minutes then take off the stove and allow to cool down. Whisk the 6 egg yolks and mix them into the bean mixture after it's cooled a little.

Pre-heat oven to 400F. Roll out the dough fairly thin (about half the thickness of a normal pie crust). Put the dough in either little pie tins or a muffin pan and spoon bean/coconut mixture into each and let bake in the oven for about 30 minutes or till filling looks firm. Take out and let cool before eating.

The only thing about the recipe I will be changing for the next time I make this is less sugar as it was just a bit too sweet for the hubby and myself though our son loved it :). Oh and I wound up making a lot of dough, I used only half of it but will be using the rest for a pie that I'll be making for the Canadian Thanksgiving this coming up weekend.

As for the Foodie Fight, you should definitely check out the other contenders and their posts, just click here to go to a list of the other wonderful recipes and vote!

It's the great Mac 'n Mozzarella Cheese Pumpkin, Charlie Brown.

Macaroni and cheese is a well known dish (at least around Canada and the US) but most people eat the kind out of a box with a powdered cheese. A lot of people will go to the trouble of putting it in the oven and baking it with a handful of cheddar on top to melt. I decided to go a little farther and make my mac 'n cheese different by way of pumpkin.

A pie pumpkin is what I choose to use (from what I understand the jack o' lantern kind isn't the greatest for cooking) which is fairly small, about the size of both of your fists together. Cut the top off like you would if you were carving a pumpkin and set it to the side after cutting a bit of the flesh and guts/seeds off. Take a spoon and spoon out the stringy stuff and the seeds out and rinse it out. Cut a bigger part of the top of the pumpkin so you have a bowl (about a 3rd of the what's left of the pumpkin is a good amount). The part that was cut off of the "bowl" needs to be cut down to a few good sized chunks (this just makes it easier to handle when you're done roasting it). Clean your seeds off well and put them and the pumpkin chunks on to a cookie sheet to roast for about 20 - 30 minutes on about 400F in the oven.

Meanwhile cook up some whole wheat macaroni noodles till they are al dente (about 10 minutes). Shred 2 cups of mozzarella, reserving 1/3 cup. When the macaroni is cooked drain and put back in the pan but don't put it back on the stove, as we are using the pan as a mixing bowl. Add the cheese to the pan and about 1/2 a cup of milk.


At this time the pumpkin should be about done, take out the chunks and with a fork scoop out the fleshy part from the skin. Mash up the flesh and add it to the pan with the noodles, cheese, and milk. Mix them well and salt and pepper to taste. Pour this mix into a casserole dish that is small enough yet deep enough for the noodles to not stick at the bottom or dry out. Sprinkle the 1/3 cup of mozzarella we left out on top and set it in the oven for about 5 minutes at 350F then turn it to broil for another 5 minutes to brown the cheese on top.

Now if you like to do a little dressing up with your food you can use that pumpkin bowl (or several depending on how many people you are cooking for) and spoon the mac 'n cheese right into the pumpkin before setting it back in the oven with the cheese on top. This is only if you want to do an interesting presentation but definitely not needed :).

I did this version for myself as the hubby happens to be sick and not wanting to eat and the little one would probably not be happy with me messing with his mac 'n cheese by putting pumpkin in it. That aside I thought it was great and will probably do this sort of thing again for everyone when everyone is feeling better!

I also decided to enter this in Weekend Herb Blogging(WHB)which is being hosted by the talented Marja over at Palachinka this week. You can check on the rules of the event over here.