I’m Joshua (or joshu, or @shu). I studied Geophysics, but now I work as an SRE. For fun, I read, make computers do math, go for hikes, and take pictures of things. Some of that makes its way onto here.
“Fearchar” should be pronounced FARE-uh-car, though pretty much everyone pronounces it FEAR-char.
Roasted garlic and black bean spread
If I keep doing these recipe posts, sooner or later I'm going to need to break out my camera and start documenting it along the way. What good is writing about food if you don't take pictures too?
In any case, on Saturday I decided to make some more of a black bean spread that I'd made a while back. I had a few minor improvements to try out: I'd used olive oil the first time, but the flavor of extra virgin olive oil was way too strong and overpowered the beans.
The first step, naturally, was cooking up some black beans. Or, I guess, if you have canned black beans, opening up a can. I cooked the ones I made for a little longer than I would usually so that they'd be a little mushier and mix better in the blender. For this recipe, I wanted about a cup of cooked black beans, so I started with a half cup of dry black beans and two cups of water. I threw in some epazote (to relieve the gassy aspects of beans – or so I've been told) and tossed the beans a little in some oil in the dutch oven first (not really sure why I did that – usually if I’m making black beans for eating, I fry an onion in there first, so I guess it’s just force of habit).
I checked on the beans regularly, and when I was satisfied that they were done to a good consistency, I threw them into some tupperware to cool while I roasted three cloves of garlic in the broiler. If you haven't done it before, it's dead simple: wrap the whole cloves of garlic in aluminum foil and throw them in the broiler. Take them out when they're soft and a little mushy. I chopped them up into chunks (again, to aid the blending process) and threw them in the blender with the beans, some salt, and about a quarter cup of vegetable oil.
I didn't blend them too finely. Not because I like some texture in my spread, though I may claim that in the future, but rather because I'm impatient and turning the blender on, turning the blender off, poking at the beans that didn't get blended, turning the blender back on again, etc., is a long and tedious process. However, it was delicious.