Warm Arugula and Black Bean Salad

This past weekend, I complained to my boyfriend about how full our freezer is at the moment.  Between bags of frozen veggies, frozen dumplings, leftover meals (like my turkey and spinach lasagna), and a variety of proteins (shrimp, pork chops, steaks and chicken breasts), there simply wasn't enough room.  I had enough and decided that we needed to cook the item that was taking the largest amount of room in our freezer -four plus pounds of frozen turkey breast.  I took the turkey breast out of the freezer and into the fridge on Sunday night.  Twenty-four hours later, the turkey was finally thawed out.

As you probably know, cooking a turkey breast takes quite a bit of time, which is something that I don't have on a weekday evening.  This is when I rely on my trusty slow cooker to do the job.  Since I would have to put the turkey in the slow cooker on Tuesday morning, I got everything prepared for it on Monday night.  I chopped up two small yellow onions, five or six cloves of garlic, and two stalks of celery.  I was also planning on adding a package of sliced mushrooms that I had in the fridge but since they are pre-washed and pre-sliced, this didn't require any prep work.  B got to work on the liquids and mixed together sixteen ounces of chicken broth, a cup of water, salt, fresh cracked black peppercorns and a few healthy tablespoons of herbs de Provence.  We put all of these ingredients in the fridge to be ready for the slow cooker the following morning before we walked to work.  On Tuesday morning, we added the veggies to the bottom of the slow cooker, followed by the turkey breast, the liquid mixture and then some more black pepper on top of the turkey.  We put the slow cooker on for low for eight hours and were off on our day.

During the day, I struggled to find a vegetable side dish to go with the turkey.  I wanted to go with something green but we've had our share of side salads, broccoli and asparagus lately.  I had about half a package of arugula that would either need to be used in the next day or so or be tossed so I really wanted to incorporate arugula into my dish.  But without salad as an option, I was at a loss of ideas.  The problem is that my boyfriend does not like wilted greens.  He can eat a spinach or arugula salad but he can't stand the texture and taste of wilted greens.  Now, my solution would be to add cheese because I'm of the firm belief that cheese makes everything better, but I knew that B hates dishes like creamed spinach so this would not work with him.  I knew that I needed to get creative.

When I got home from the gym, I still didn't know what to do with the arugula so I decided to start with the basics.  The arugula was already pre-washed but I went through the rest of the package to take out any leaves that looked less than fresh and to trim any long stems.  

I gave the arugula a quick splash of water to add some moisture to the leaves.  I didn't want the arugula to be soaked but just wet enough to wilt quickly and easily when I cooked it.  

I heated up a pan with olive oil and added one chopped small yellow onion and several minced cloves of garlic.  I seasoned the onion and garlic with salt and fresh cracked black pepper.  I wanted to add some heat to this dish so I added some generous shakes of cayenne pepper and red pepper flakes.

When the garlic was just about to brown, I slowly started to add the arugula to the pan.  Because B's issue with wilted greens is the texture, my strategy was to hide as much of the arugula as possible.  I looked in our pantry shelves and found a few cans of black beans.  I drained and rinsed one can of black beans in a colander and then added those to the pan.  I personally thought that there was a disproportionate amount of black beans in comparison to the arugula but I thought that this would be perfect for my boyfriend.

When B came home, he said the he could smell the garlic and turkey scents all the way up the stairs.  We took the turkey out of the slow cooker and it was so moist that the bottom half of the breast fell right off!

I plated our dinner and nervously waited for him to take a bite of the warm arugula and black bean salad.  He said that there was a lot of heat and that with the black beans, he actually liked it!  I thought he was just saying this to not hurt my feelings but I was convinced after he had two helpings of the salad and asked if I could make this again in the future!

I think I'll call this dish warm arugula and black bean salad a success.  I still don't think I can convince B to eat wilted greens on a regular basis but this is one small step in the right direction.  And if you have any other creative warm spinach or arugula recipes, please send them my way!