Healthy Spinach & Artichoke Dip (with white beans!!)

Its been a crazy week. One of those weeks that makes you want to spend an entire day in bed just relaxing & sleeping. Given that I have an (almost- whaaat) two year old and a slam packed weekend, an entire day in bed isn’t looking likely ;). BUT, I did take a little time off work this week to get my hair done:

I’ve also had some good quality time with the peanut, including picking strawberries from our garden. Her carefree attitude always picks up my spirits:

Time in the kitchen always makes me happy too!! I re-made a recipe I made a longgg time ago, a healthier spinach and artichoke dip.  I am re-posting the recipe because it is that good! Note: this isn’t like the dip you get a restaurants (packed full of fat), so you must actually enjoy the taste of artichokes to like this ;)).

Ingredients:

• Fresh spinach- bowl full (or desired quantity)
• 2 15-ounce cans of artichoke hearts
• 1 15-ounce can of white beans (whatever white beans you can get your hands on)
• 3-4 tablespoons of olive oil
• Juice from 1 lemon
• chopped garlic (desired amount)
• 1/4-1/2 teaspoon ground red pepper
• 1/3 cup Parmesan cheese (+additional cheese to top dip)

Directions:
Preheat oven to 350

On the stove over medium/medium low heat, wilt spinach in a little bit of olive oil. In a food processor or blender, mix together wilted spinach, drained artichokes and white beans, olive oil, lemon juice, garlic, red pepper and parmesan cheese. You can either blend until smooth or leave some chunkier pieces (however you like it!).

Place mix into baking dish, top with additional cheese. Bake for 45 minutes. Enjoy with veggies, tortilla chips, or pita chips.

This is a picture pre-bake I didn’t nab one post bake):

    

Josh enjoyed it (again) so much, he asked me to make a batch for his man day on Friday!

Are you having a busy week???

Baked Vegan Pineapple Black Bean Burgers

I love black beans. I’ve passed the love onto Kaylin…she can house them! Then her entire face gets covered in black bean “juice”. We call her the coal miner ;). I wanted to make up a batch of black bean burgers, but I wanted them to be on the lighter side:

 

Baked Vegan Pineapple Black Bean Burgers

Ingredients:

• 15 oz black beans, drained and rinsed (I used Bush’s low sodium- always do!)
• Crushed pineapple in pineapple juice
• 2 tablespoons finely chopped red onion
• 1/2 cup panko (or bread crumbs)
• 1/8-1/4 teaspoon ground red pepper
• 1 tablespoon ground flax seed

Pre-heat oven to 400 degrees F.

In a large bowl, mash the black beans to desired texture using a fork or potato masher (I like mine a little on the chunkier side). Add 2 tablespoons of the crushed pineapple in pineapple juice, onion, bread crumbs, ground red pepper, and flax seed. Mix until just combined. Form into 4 burgers.

Cover a baking sheet with parchment paper. Place the burgers on the paper. Bake for 8 minutes on each side.

I used the burgers to make burger bowls. For the bowls,I  mixed some of the remaining crushed pineapple in with cooked brown rice. I topped the rice with steamed vegetables, the black bean burgers, and avocado. mmmm….

Pre-bake:

In the bowl, pre-avocado.

These were super tasty. Are you a bean burger fan??