black bean pocket

So what happens when you leave me to my own devices in the kitchen? I mix together a whole bunch of things and hope it tastes good! I mean, generally it does taste good. Because this is me, we're talking about. Duh. So y'all better appreciate what I'm about to do: I'm going to share with you! Because I measured everything, I can actually post a recipe. This is such a rarity, we're going to take a minute and cherish it.


...ok that's enough.

This morning I noticed I had some black beans that were just begging to be eaten. I also bought some lovely crusty bread at Borough this weekend (pugliese, for anyone interested), and I'll make up any excuse to eat good bread. At first I was thinking toast with beans and a fried egg, so I pulled out a pan to toast the bread and thought to myself "hmmm heating the beans will just use up another pan. That means more cleaning for me. That's not cool" so I decided to get creative. I now have tin foil in my arsenal since I needed it for my brisket last week, so I decided to use it for heating the beans in the oven. No cleaning! I also scratched the egg, and went for a completely no-clean approach. So here goes!

Black Bean Pocket (WW points = 6)

1/2c cooked black beans (mine were from dry, but you could use canned)
1 1/2oz avocado, diced
1 small tomato (like, a roma/plum tomato), diced
1tsp olive oil
1 slice crusty bread, cut in half (my slice was 1 1/8oz if you're pointing this)
3 cloves garlic, peeled
1 hot pepper (optional)
2TBSP fresh cilantro, chopped
salt to taste

Preheat oven to 180C/350F. While oven is preheating, prepare the food: Drizzle the 1tsp olive oil over the bread. Grab a sheet of tin foil and mold it into a small bowl. Put beans on the foil. Top with the tomato and cilantro, and sprinkle with a little salt to bring out the flavor. Place garlic cloves in the mix, and top with the pepper (it will cook down and mildly flavor the mix so it's not too hot. If you want more kick, you can cut up the pepper and mince the garlic. But then I would reduce the garlic cloves by 1). Close up the mix in the tin foil and place on a baking sheet in the oven for 15-20 minutes. Add the bread to the baking sheet and bake another few minutes, until the bread is toasted to your liking. When opening the foil pouch, be careful! There will be a lot of steam in there and it could burn you. So open slightly and let it air out a minute. There will also be a bit of liquid at the bottom so just drain that into the sink. Put the bean mix into your bowl, top with the avocado, and place the bread on the side. Enjoy!

This was super filling and delicious! I could definitely eat this more often. I'm excited! Oh also, sorry I don't have pictures. I was just so excited I ate it and then realized I hadn't taken pictures. I'll get those to you soon. I promise.

Update: if you read this when it was fresh you'll notice I changed the points. That's because I brainfarted and added in the points for an egg which I didn't actually eat or add into the recipe. So now it's accurate. Promise.