Cheesy, Spicy Black Bean Bake #recipe from Molly MacRae

Get ready to fall in love—this recipe is easy, fast, adaptable, delicious, and full of protein. You can tone down the spiciness by leaving out the jalapeño and chipotles, or zip it up by adding more or hotter peppers or as many dashes of hot sauce as you can take. Use your favorite melting cheese or a combination of cheeses. 

Serve it with your choice of rice, tortillas, tortilla chips, olives, and/or pickled jalapeño slices. Have a green salad on the side for a complete meal that is guaranteed to warm you through and through.

Cheesy, Spicy Black Bean Bake

Adapted from Ali Slagle in The New York Times

Yield: 4 Servings (next time I’ll make either half again as much or double the recipe)

Ingredients

3 tablespoons olive oil

1/2 medium yellow onion, chopped

1/2 jalapeño, chopped

5-6 garlic cloves, peeled and sliced

1/4 cup tomato paste

3 tablespoons chipotles in adobo sauce

1 1/2 teaspoons smoked paprika

1/4 teaspoon red pepper flakes

1 teaspoon ground cumin

2 (14-ounce) cans black beans, drained and rinsed

1/2 cup boiling water

Kosher salt and black pepper

1 1/2 cups grated cheese (Manchego, Cheddar, Monterey Jack, Pepper Jack – your choice)

Directions

Heat oven to 475 degrees F.

In a 10-inch ovenproof skillet, heat the olive oil over medium heat. Fry the onion until turning golden around the edges. Add jalapeno and garlic and fry until the garlic is lightly golden, about 1 minute. Stir in the tomato paste, chipotles in adobo sauce, paprika, red pepper flakes, and cumin (be careful of splattering), and fry for 30 seconds, reducing heat as needed to prevent the garlic from burning.

Add the beans, water, and generous pinches of salt and pepper. Stir to combine. Sprinkle the cheese evenly over the top. Bake until the cheese melts, 5 to 10 minutes. If the top isn’t as brown as you’d like, put the skillet under the broiler for 1 or 2 minutes.

Serve immediately.

 

 Coming in June 2025!

There’ll be Shell to Pay

Haunted Shell Shop book 2

 

When she’s not selling seashells by the North Carolina seashore from her shell shop, Maureen Nash is a crime-solving sleuth with a ghost pirate for a supernatural sidekick . . .

Maureen is still getting used to life on Ocracoke Island, learning how to play the “shell game” of her business—and ghost whispering with the spirit of Emrys Lloyd, the eighteenth-century Welsh pirate who haunts her shop, The Moon Shell. The spectral buccaneer has unburied a treasure hidden in the shop’s attic that turns out to be antique shell art stolen from Maureen’s late husband’s family years ago.

Victor “Shelly” Sullivan and his wife Lenrose visit the shop and specifically inquire about these rare items. Not only is it suspicious that this shell collector should arrive around the time Maureen found the art, but Emrys insists that Sullivan’s wife is an imposter because Lenrose is dead. A woman’s corpse the police have been unable to identify was discovered by the Fig Ladies, a group who formed an online fig appreciation society. They’re meeting on Ocracoke for the first time in person and count Lenrose among their number, so the woman can’t possibly be dead.

But Lenrose’s behavior doesn’t quite match the person the Fig Ladies interacted with online. Now, Maureen and Emrys—with assistance from the Fig Ladies—must prove the real Lenrose is dead and unmask her mysterious pretender before a desperate murderer strikes again . . .

 

 

The Boston Globe says Molly MacRae writes “murder with a dose of drollery.” She’s the author of the award-winning, national bestselling Haunted Yarn Shop Mysteries and the Highland Bookshop Mysteries. As Margaret Welch, she writes books for Annie’s Fiction. Her short stories have appeared in Alfred Hitchcock Mystery Magazine and she’s a winner of the Sherwood Anderson Award for Short Fiction. Visit Molly on Facebook and Pinterest and connect with her on Instagram or Bluesky.