I came home late from work the other night, and even though the temptation was great to order in pizza or take out Chinese, I resisted. I had just baked these light and fluffy burger rolls with the Soft Whole Wheat Bread dough recipe from Healthy Bread in 5 Minutes a Day, and was really eager to try them. So, in the interest of time – I was so hungry I could have chewed the arm off the couch – I grabbed some ground beef and some of my favorite cheats, and had supper on the table in literally, fifteen minutes! That’s less time than you can get a pizza – or even decide on your toppings!

This quickie meal blends the gentle heat of a favorite chili, the fun of a Sloppy Joe, and the goodness of whole wheat. By the way, this would make a great addition to your Super Bowl menu, too! Ready? Start your stopwatches:

Black Bean Chili Sloppy Joes

Ingredients:

2 Tbs corn oil
1 lb lean ground beef
1 16 oz jar Oxford Falls® Fried Green Tomato Salsa (or any tomatillo-based salsa)
1 15.5 oz can black beans (drained and rinsed)
1 14.5 oz can diced tomatoes
8 whole wheat or whole grain hamburger buns (toasted, if you like)

Preparation:

Heat the oil in a large frying pan over medium-high heat. Brown the ground beef. Add the jar of tomatillo salsa, stir, bring up to a simmer. Add the black beans and the diced tomatoes, including its liquid. Allow to simmer until most of the liquid has cooked off, about 5 minutes.

Serve over sliced burger buns. Serves 8.

Told you it was a cheat. A tasty, even pretty healthy cheat, at that. Want to make it even healthier? Change out the ground beef for ground turkey, or even ground chicken.

And those burger buns? They sprang from this edition of the HBin5 Challenge:

To review, Michelle over at Big Black Dog, organized a group to bake from the book by Dr. Jeff Hertzberg and Zoe François, Healthy Bread in Five Minutes a Day.

The current challenge is to bake 3 different things using the Soft Whole Wheat Bread Recipe: a loaf of bread, hamburger or hotdog rolls, and Apple Strudel Bread.

First, the straight-up sandwich loaf:

This is actually the second loaf I made. The first one was made with the original recipe from HBin5, and was a great hit. So much so, that the loaf was eaten before I could photograph it! This is an excellent sandwich loaf – soft, tight texture, and holds together, even sliced very thin. But I couldn’t help but wonder if I couldn’t make it even healthier for my borderline-diabetic husband.

In this version, I substituted light agave nectar for the honey as the sweetener, and substituted an 8 ounce carton of Egg Beaters (roughly the equivalent of 4 eggs) for the 5 eggs called for in the recipe. I also added 1/4 cup of flax seed meal, and to lighten it up a bit more, substituted white whole wheat flour for half of the whole wheat flour. While MJ detected only the slightest difference in taste from the original, it wasn’t anything pronounced, and I was instructed, “Don’t lose this recipe!” The highest praise.

Next up, were the burger buns you met at the top of this post. I used my kitchen scale to make these buns all the same size. They baked up soft, beautifully textured, yet sturdy. Delicious!

Last, but not least, is the Apple Strudel Bread. The same whole wheat bread dough is rolled out and rolled up with chopped apple, walnut, and (in mine) dried blueberries instead of raisins, all mixed with raw sugar and cinnamon. Yum.

This was perfect for the Jewish holiday, Tu B’Shevat, essentially our Arbor Day. As the 3 of you regular readers should know by now, a Jewish holiday doesn’t exist that doesn’t have certain food traditions attached to it and this is no exception. Traditionally, foods that contain tree fruit and nuts are served on Tu B’Shevat, and the apples and walnuts in this, definitely qualify.

Check out the other participants in the HBin5 Bread Braid to see what everyone else came up with!

Come back Tuesday for my first sponsored giveaway! Here’s your hint: Whether you’re a man or a woman, gourmet cook or home cook, you need this, and I’m betting most of you don’t have one!

I know. It’s common. Nothing special. Let’s move it along. But wait!

Look – I can’t even remember the last time I made banana bread. I have bad memories of slicing them open, only to find that dark, doughy center that results from an imbalance of wet and fat to dry. Or something. In fact, the last time I made one that didn’t have that mysterious dense middle was in 9th grade home ec class. As I recall, I forgot to put in the banana.

Sometimes, the simplest, most prosaic entries in the annals of food are the hardest to get right. So when I noticed that I had two beautiful decent-sized bananas on the counter that had, shall we say, “gone off”, I couldn’t bring myself to throw them out. I also noticed a pint of blueberries in the fridge that were slightly past their prime, and the proverbial lightbulb went off! I decided to try it again.

I found a basic banana bread recipe in one of my ancient cookbooks* and modified it to 1) fit my loaf pan, and 2) suit the actual ingredients I had on hand. Now, without further ado:

Banana Blueberry Walnut Bread

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

Grease and flour a 10”x 5” x 3” loaf pan

3 cups All Purpose Flour
1/2 tsp. Ground Cinnamon
1/4 tsp. Ground Nutmeg
1/4 tsp. Ground Ginger
1/2 tsp. Salt
1 tsp. Baking Soda
3 Large Eggs
1 Cup Sugar
1/3 cup Oil (I used canola, but anything neutral will do)
2 Large Bananas, very ripe & mashed
(or approx. just over 1 cup)
1 to 2 cups Fresh or frozen Blueberries
1 1/4 cups Chopped Walnuts (optional)

In one bowl, stir together the flour, cinnamon, nutmeg, ginger, salt, and baking soda. In a second bowl, stir together the eggs, sugar, oil, and mashed bananas. Add the wet ingredients to the dry, and stir. Add the blueberries and walnuts, and stir to combine.

Pour batter into prepared loaf pan and bake for approx. 70 minutes (1 hr. 10 mins.).

To prevent over-browning, fold a piece of aluminum foil in half, and place loosely over top after desired color is achieved – about 1 hour. Start checking for doneness with a toothpick or thin-bladed knife after 1 hour. Tester should come out clean. If not done after 70 minutes, add time 5 minutes at a time.

I had no idea how it would turn out, but what the hell. It turned out awesome. It was beautiful, and MJ said it was the best “quickbread” I ever made. So of course, I had to write it down before I forgot what I did (there are more than a few of those in my past… one-time-wonders, never to be seen – or tasted – again, because I couldn’t remember how I did it). And since I did actually write it down, I thought I’d share it with you. Feel free to experiment on your own!

Enjoy!

*I’m not saying which “ancient cookbook” the basic recipe came from, because of an issue a food blogger recently had with one of America’s Test Kitchens‘ online publications. Subject for another day. Suffice it to say that it’s been around forever, and I didn’t get the recipe online.