Pregnancy causes brain blockage. Lately mine seems to be stopping up the historically easy flowing ideas about what to make for supper. Tonight, for example, I stared into a fridge full of all of my usual fixings and no light turned on. We’ve done chicken, salmon, shrimp, quiche, pasta, and tacos in the last week…what can I do now? Beans.

I bought about 10 cans of beans last week, knowing that this sort of blank slate conundrum may occur and I thought them versatile enough to be up to the task of breaking the barrier. I was right! With a can of black beans and a slightly modified version of recipe from allrecipes.com I had a delicious, hot meal ready in about 20 minutes. Here’s what those 20 minutes entailed:

1 can black beans, drained and rinsed
1/2 small yellow onion quartered
3 garlic cloves
1/2 bell pepper (I used orange)
1 Tbs cumin
1/2 tbs red chili flakes
1/2 tbs celery salt
1 tbs kosher salt
1 tbs ground black pepper
1 egg
1 cup bread crumbs

Preheat oven to 375, grill to hot or panini maker to hot

In a bowl mash the beans until pasty
Blend onion, garlic and pepper in a Cuisinart or blender until finely chopped
Mix into beans
Add spices, and egg and mix together
Add bread crumbs until the paste is thick and sticks together

Form into 4 patties

If baking or grilling place on lightly oiled foil for 10 minutes each side
On panini maker, spray lightly with oil, place patties on and press for 10 minutes

Add cheese slices if you want (I sure did!)

While the patties grilled on my panini press, I sliced a sweet potato into thin sticks and threw them onto a lightly oiled fry pan with about 1 Tbs kosher salt. By the time the patties were done, the fries were hot and tender, and we were able to enjoy a simple, delish, quick and different meal.

Now…what to make tomorrow…