Crockpot Beans and Rice with Kale

Ingredients:
1 cup black beans (or whatever kind you have)
1 cup uncooked rice
1 onion, coarsely chopped
1 small tin of diced green chilies (optional)
4 pieces of bacon, cut into small pieces (optional - leave out if you're feeding vegetarians!)
4 cups chicken or veggie broth (again, don't use chicken broth for vegetarians)
1 tablespoon white wine vinegar
2 tablespoons brown sugar
1-3 cloves garlic, minced
1-3 tsp chili powder
salt and pepper to taste
1 large bunch kale, ripped into approximately 1-inch pieces

Put everything in the crockpot except for the kale. Cook on high for 1 hour, then turn to low and simmer all day until the liquid is absorbed, adding water or more broth if it's looking dry before the beans and rice are cooked. Stir in kale 20-30 minutes before serving and let it until it wilts a bit. Makes kind of a lot, but it freezes well.

Blue Cheese and Pear Salad

It's been kind of hot this week, and that makes me want to eat salad. Leave out any of the ingredients that you don't like.

Ingredients:
Romaine lettuce or baby spinach
Crumbled blue cheese
Red grapes, cut in half
A couple of pears, cut into chunks about the same size as the grape halves
Chopped walnuts
Raspberry or balsamic vinaigrette (read the ingredients to make sure, but most are gluten-free)

Mix everything together and enjoy not turning your oven on! You can add pieces of chicken or tofu if you want to make this a bit more substantial.

Chocolate Chickpea Cake

It's Wednesday, kids. Let's make some cake. This is a recipe my mom found somewhere and I've modified it a bit.

Ingredients

1/2 cups of chocolate (I use dark chocolate, but it's okay to use milk chocolate if you don't like dark chocolate. Obviously, it will not be dairy-free if you use milk chocolate.)
1 19oz can of chickpeas, drained and rinsed
4 eggs
3/4 cup brown sugar (you can use white sugar, but brown sugar tastes so much better)
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
2 teaspoons vanilla extract

Preheat the oven to 350 F. Melt the chocolate over low heat in a saucepan (you can also use a microwave, if you have one. I don't.). Find some way to liquefy the chickpeas and eggs. You can use a food processor if you have one, but I do not, so I just put a little bit at a time in my magic bullet and blend it. Mix in the chocolate and other ingredients. Pour into a greased 9 inch cake pan and bake for 40 minutes, until a knife inserted into the center comes out clean. Let it rest in the pan for 10 minutes before transferring it to a plate. You can also make this recipe into cupcakes, just decrease the cooking time a bit (more like 20-30 minutes).