Our new Book of the Month is Peter Pan! Congrats to Selah from A Bibliophile’s Style who guessed it after our hint on Wednesday. With Easter approaching fast, this is probably a crazy busy week for many of you, so we’ll cut right to the chase:

I’ve always loved how Peter is childhood personified, especially when it comes to his boundless energy and imagination. I wanted a menu composed of dishes that little boys on the run could grab a bite of before running off to slay dragons and find buried treasure. This in mind, I made a menu of light, snackable foods, all of which tie in with important aspects of the Peter Pan story.

This menu starts in much the same place as the book, with Peter trying to recapture his shadow. This zesty black bean dip recipe from Edible Perspective is the ideal color and flavor for a feisty shadow, and though Peter’s iconic hat comes from the movie rather than the book, I think it makes a perfect shape for our tortilla chips.

 

Peter Hats and Shadow Dip

“ She returned to the nursery, and found Nana with something in her mouth, which proved to be the boy’s shadow. As he leapt at the window Nana had closed it quickly, too late to catch him, but his shadow had not had time to get out; slam went the window and snapped it off. ”
— Peter Pan

 

INGREDIENTS:

• 1 small garlic clove, minced or passed through a garlic press
• 1 3/4 cups canned black beans, drained and rinsed
• 3 tbsp water
• 2 tbsp olive oil
• 1 tbsp lime juice
• 1/2 tsp cumin
• 1/4 tsp each of salt and pepper
• 1/8 tsp cayenne pepper, optional
• 2 10″ spinach tortillas
• 1 10″ tomato tortilla
• extra salt for dusting the chips

Makes 12 chips and a little under 2 cups of dip

 

INSTRUCTIONS:

1. Preheat your oven to 350°. While you wait for it to heat up, combine everything except the tortillas and extra salt in a food processor and process until desired consistency is achieved. The dip will be chunky if processed for 1 minute on high and smooth if processed for two minutes on high. Transfer to a serving dish and sprinkle with a little spare cayenne for garnish.

   

2. Cut 12 narrow “leaf” shapes from your tomato tortilla, similar to the one pictured below. Mine was a little under 3″ from tip to tip. Cut several slits in each side of your leaves to turn them into feathers.

   

3. With a small knife, cut a triangle from one of your spinach tortillas. For mine, I used the corner of a piece of paper to create a right angle. My long side is 4 1/2″ with the two shorter sides measuring 3″, but you can make yours any size you want. Use your first triangle as a stencil and cut out 12 triangles from your spinach tortillas (you should be able to get 6 triangles from each if you cut them close together).
   
4. Cut a slot near the bottom of each of your triangles (my slots were about 5/8″ from the bottom). Leave about 1/4″ between each end of the slot and the outside edges of the triangle. Insert the feathers in the slots at an angle, so they are resting on one side of the slot. Make sure the bottom of the feather isn’t poking out from under the hat!

   

5. Your hats are now constructed! Dust them with a light sprinkling of salt and toast them on an ungreased baking sheet for 6 minutes or until the tips just begin to brown. If you don’t plan on serving them right away, allow them to cool on a wire rack.

   

6. Serve to your favorite Lost Boys alongside the black bean shadow dip. 🙂