BBQ Black Bean and Corn Soup with Copycat Jiffy Corn Muffins

I love the black bean and corn combo and came up with this soup wanting to use up some black beans that I had made in the pressure cooker, then ended up freezing because I made so many I didn't know what to do with them.

I pulled out one container of the beans that I had thawed in the fridge which ended up being 5 cups, so there is the start to this soup.

Barbecue Black Bean and Corn Soup

5 cups black beans, either precooked dried beans or drained canned would work

3 cups water

1 15 ounce can diced tomatoes, undrained

2 cups frozen corn

1/2 cup of your favorite BBQ sauce

1 teaspoon seasoned salt (I use Lawry's)

1/2 teaspoon chili powder (more if you'd like)

1/2 teaspoon dried cilantro

Put all ingredients into large pot and simmer over medium high heat for 30-45 minutes, stirring occasionally.

That's all folks! Super easy, isn't it? And it was so delicious! Guess what, even the kids liked it, seriously! All three of them, miracle of miracles, ate the same dish, whoa. I served the soup with a "copycat" or "clone" recipe for Jiffy Corn Muffin Mix. The real Jiffy Muffin Mix is really popular in lots of recipes, cornbread casserole, tamale pie, etc. but did you know it has lard in it? Not so great for vegetarians. No worries though, make your own! This recipe from recipe zaar is equal to one 8.5 ounce box of Jiffy Corn Muffin Mix:

2/3 cup all-purpose flour
1/2 cup yellow cornmeal
3 tablespoons granulated sugar
1 tablespoon baking powder
1/4 teaspoon salt
2 tablespoons vegetable oil

To make muffins add

1 egg
1/3 cup milk

Combine first 5 ingredients in a bowl, mix well.

Whisk in vegetable oil and mix until dry mixture is smooth and lumps are gone.

If another recipe is calling for a box of Jiffy Corn Muffin Mix, add the above mixed ingredients to that recipe.

To make Corn Muffins, preheat oven to 400F, spray muffin pan with non-stick cooking spray.
Combine mix with egg and milk, mixing well.

Fill muffin pan 1/2 full, bake for 15-20 minutes.

(my personal preference for oven time and temp is 375 for 15 minutes for muffins)

If you are a soup fan, visit Deb Kahakai Kitchen and check out her weekly Souper Sundays event, yum! I love soups of all kinds, and being the bread lover that I am, love to pair the two. In fact, if I'm making soup, I almost always have to make a bread to go with it, just one of those things. My favorite way to eat the BBQ Black Bean and Corn Soup was with a crumbled corn muffin on top, mix it all together, mmm :)

My Kitchen My World -- Cuba

The country of the week for My Kitchen My World is Cuba! I was not sure off the top of my head what recipes to try, but after doing a few internet searches on Cuban dishes, I knew one of them had to be Cuban black beans and rice. Many of the recipe for this dish that I looked over called for dried beans cooked in a pressure cooker -- perfect! I got a Cook's Essentials 5 quart electric pressure cooker right before Christmas and this was my first time using it. I was nervous at first, a pressure cooker is kind of intimidating, but I figured I'd just give it a try with these beans and not be too worried about the end result, if they were great, wonderful, if they weren't, well it is probably because I've never used a pressure cooker before.


Many of the Cuban bean pressure cooker recipes called for the beans to be soaked overnight -- but I didn't. I was just going with the "try it out and see" method, wondering if the beans could be done without soaking, which I know is supposed to make them more digestable, but I was more concerned with texture and flavor. So I just rinsed and picked through a bag of dried black beans, plopped them in the pressure cooker, added water and hoped they would turn out. I completely guessed at the time, 15 minutes at high pressure, and guess what? They turned out!

I served them over rice with some cheese, sour cream, and salsa. I am really impressed with how fast the cooked in the pressure! Can't wait to try out some more bean recipes in there :) If anyone knows of any great meatless pressure cooker recipes, please let me know. I'll be sure to post more pressure cooker recipes as soon I do some more trial and error.

While searching for Cuban recipe I came across this website with a recipe for Cuban Pastelitos that was really simple and sounded yummy. What caught my eye was the guava filling, and guess what I picked up on netgrocer a month or so ago? Guava jelly! I'm always on the lookout for jams and jellies that I can't find locally (since the kids love toast and jam) and had never tried guava jelly before! It had been sitting in the pantry and I wasn't quite sure what to expect but it was a great filling for the pastelitos with some cream cheese. They were just like mini turnovers and a fun treat to have after our Cuban beans and rice lunch.

Due to the extremely busy holidays, I missed the two MKMW countries that were picked before Cuba -- France and the Phillipines, but plan to do make-ups for them sometime soon. I hope everyone has a wonderful weekend, happy cooking :)