Dinner Plate #66

 

Having a commitment to plan my meals around what's already here inspired me to make this salsa verde and white bean casserole (recipe mostly from From My Bowl), kiwi mango salsa (recipe from Our Best Bites), halved cherry tomatoes, sliced avocado, and blue corn tortilla chip "dippers."

Okay, so this means I also have other stuff that needs to get used now, but I avoided some of the accumulation and I have plans for the ingredients I had to buy, so I might consider this a win. Instead of jackfruit, I used some frozen artichokes, which I cooked and then chopped. I will use the artichokes in another recipe later, so that meant I could "cut two carrots with one knife," as Colleen Patrick-Goudreau puts it. (We don't wish to kill birds around here, with one or multiple stones.) The artichokes worked really well here, though I should have added more salt to account for the brine that would have been in the jackfruit. Oh, well--it still tasted great and one can salt things after the fact. I topped my casserole with non-dairy cheese and non-dairy sour cream as well as fresh cilantro.

It's one of those "dump and bake" casseroles, which really do make life easier. I found the recipe a tiny bit weird as I stood there stirring corn, artichokes, beans, canned green chiles, and onions in a casserole dish, but it worked out, somehow! And it required very little effort. It would have been less effort with jackfruit, but I'm trying to be sensible around here.

The mango kiwi salsa is a new one for me. I already had some jalapenos to use, so that was one motive, as was a reliance on tropical fruit in the dead of winter. This was good with the blue corn chips and also a beautiful contrast.

Avocado and tomatoes are self-explanatory. They are pretty much always good (if the produce itself is in good condition, anyway); they were good here.

Without the toppings I put on the casserole, by the way, this would be a very allergy-friendly meal--no soy, nuts, or gluten would be found--so keep that in mind if that's something you need!