Rice and beans
13/01/19 05:24
Arroz y frijoles. Rice and beans. It is a staple food in many different places. I’ve seen recipes that are for cajun rice and beans or Cuban rice and beans or Jamaican rice and beans that are all very similar. I didn’t pay much attention until a sister church relationship enabled me to make a few trips to Costa Rica. We joked after one trip that sometime we ate rice and sometimes we ate beans and sometimes we ate rice and beans and when we wanted to be fancy, we’d have beans and rice. In many parts of the world it is easy to grow simple black beans and rice. You have to live in a place that has plenty of water to grow rice, but there are lots of places like that. Having lived all of my life in places where the staple grain crop is wheat, I don’t know as much about rice, but with connections in Costa Rica and connections in Japan I have learned to cook and eat rice and we always keep rice in our cupboard, available to add as a side dish or a main ingredient in a meal.
A nutritionist could give details, but there is something about vegetable proteins that makes certain mixes of foods more complete nutrition than a single food. Bean s and rice with a few added vegetables make for a complete meal. As I met more vegetarians and vegans, I started to become interested in learning to cook for our friends and I learned a few staple vegan recipes. My rice and beans recipe was easy to convert. I had been using butter to sauté the garlic and onions. Substitute olive oil. I had been cooking the rice in chicken stock. Substitute vegetable stock. Or cook the rice in water. The ingredients are pretty simple. Onion, garlic, a bit of jalapeño, some green pepper, tomatoes, rice and beans. I use canned beans when I forget to soak the beans the night before. And don’t forget the cilantro. Like some of my favorite recipes, the ingredients vary depending upon what is in the cupboard. Sometimes I have some prepared pico de gallo made up and add it. Sometimes I have a prepared packet of chili spices, sometimes I just add spice to taste from the cabinet. A little lime juice is nice when I have some.
It makes a great dish to take to a potluck. At least with the groups with whom I share potlucks these days there are more and more specialty diets. I watch people who need to eat gluten-free or who are vegan or who have food allergies struggle with decisions about what they can and what they cannot eat. Cooking something that is vegan, gluten-free and doesn’t contain nuts is a good starter for many people.
And you can always add some other food to rice and beans. In Costa Rican restaurants an egg on top of the rice and beans is common. We also have enjoyed rice and beans with a variety of different meats, depending on what is available. Chicken is common, but we’ve also had pork and beef with rice and beans.
I guess I woke up thinking about rice and beans because I do have to prepare a dish for a potluck this afternoon. The Well, a small group of spiritual seekers, meets weekly in our church and I usually meet with them. They hold a potluck once a month and it is a small group, so I know that food preferences of most of the regulars. I enjoy the challenge of coming up with a dish that others enjoy. But I think I’ve taken about every variation of rice and beans that I know to potlucks recently. At Thanksgiving this year I found a great recipe for cranberry rice (no beans) that I made on several occasions over the holidays, but I’ve already taken that dish to the potluck. I’ve done baked beans with a lot of different types of beans. I’ve done variations on three bean salads.
It certainly seems like all of my vegan recipes have either rice or beans in them. I’ve brought hummus and chips, but hummus is mostly garbanzo beans even if we call them chickpeas.
Once I made little appetizers with a bit of phyllo dough, tomatoes and fresh basil, but that isn’t gluten-free and it is quite a bit of work.
I’m thinking some variation on rice and beans may be in order for today because the ingredients are already in the house and there is no need to make a grocery run. And, frankly because rice and beans have become comfort food for me. It isn’t comfort food in the sense that it is something that was served in the home where I grew up. For that you’d have to turn to macaroni and cheese or grilled cheese with tomato soup or waffles. I remember my mother experimenting with recipes that used rice after an aunt and uncle visited India, but it was a less-used grain in our household. We brought wheat home by the bucket from the ranch and ground it course for cereal and fine for flour. No one we knew raised rice. But these days I do think of beans and rice as a comfort food. We’ll make beans and rice when we’ve had a busy day and neither of us has enthusiasm for thinking what to make. We often make beans and rice when we are traveling with our camper. One pot dishes are nice when you are woking in limited space. I can add a can of tuna and make it seem special. And I know the Spanish, Arroz y frijoles, to make it sound exotic.
When you get the stock boiling, add the rice and stir, turn it down and let it simmer. Rice doesn’t like to cook too quickly. Then you can prepare the other ingredients at your leisure. Of course that means using a frying pan and a pot, defying the one pot principle.
And I still don’t know what I’m taking to the pot luck this afternoon.
A nutritionist could give details, but there is something about vegetable proteins that makes certain mixes of foods more complete nutrition than a single food. Bean s and rice with a few added vegetables make for a complete meal. As I met more vegetarians and vegans, I started to become interested in learning to cook for our friends and I learned a few staple vegan recipes. My rice and beans recipe was easy to convert. I had been using butter to sauté the garlic and onions. Substitute olive oil. I had been cooking the rice in chicken stock. Substitute vegetable stock. Or cook the rice in water. The ingredients are pretty simple. Onion, garlic, a bit of jalapeño, some green pepper, tomatoes, rice and beans. I use canned beans when I forget to soak the beans the night before. And don’t forget the cilantro. Like some of my favorite recipes, the ingredients vary depending upon what is in the cupboard. Sometimes I have some prepared pico de gallo made up and add it. Sometimes I have a prepared packet of chili spices, sometimes I just add spice to taste from the cabinet. A little lime juice is nice when I have some.
It makes a great dish to take to a potluck. At least with the groups with whom I share potlucks these days there are more and more specialty diets. I watch people who need to eat gluten-free or who are vegan or who have food allergies struggle with decisions about what they can and what they cannot eat. Cooking something that is vegan, gluten-free and doesn’t contain nuts is a good starter for many people.
And you can always add some other food to rice and beans. In Costa Rican restaurants an egg on top of the rice and beans is common. We also have enjoyed rice and beans with a variety of different meats, depending on what is available. Chicken is common, but we’ve also had pork and beef with rice and beans.
I guess I woke up thinking about rice and beans because I do have to prepare a dish for a potluck this afternoon. The Well, a small group of spiritual seekers, meets weekly in our church and I usually meet with them. They hold a potluck once a month and it is a small group, so I know that food preferences of most of the regulars. I enjoy the challenge of coming up with a dish that others enjoy. But I think I’ve taken about every variation of rice and beans that I know to potlucks recently. At Thanksgiving this year I found a great recipe for cranberry rice (no beans) that I made on several occasions over the holidays, but I’ve already taken that dish to the potluck. I’ve done baked beans with a lot of different types of beans. I’ve done variations on three bean salads.
It certainly seems like all of my vegan recipes have either rice or beans in them. I’ve brought hummus and chips, but hummus is mostly garbanzo beans even if we call them chickpeas.
Once I made little appetizers with a bit of phyllo dough, tomatoes and fresh basil, but that isn’t gluten-free and it is quite a bit of work.
I’m thinking some variation on rice and beans may be in order for today because the ingredients are already in the house and there is no need to make a grocery run. And, frankly because rice and beans have become comfort food for me. It isn’t comfort food in the sense that it is something that was served in the home where I grew up. For that you’d have to turn to macaroni and cheese or grilled cheese with tomato soup or waffles. I remember my mother experimenting with recipes that used rice after an aunt and uncle visited India, but it was a less-used grain in our household. We brought wheat home by the bucket from the ranch and ground it course for cereal and fine for flour. No one we knew raised rice. But these days I do think of beans and rice as a comfort food. We’ll make beans and rice when we’ve had a busy day and neither of us has enthusiasm for thinking what to make. We often make beans and rice when we are traveling with our camper. One pot dishes are nice when you are woking in limited space. I can add a can of tuna and make it seem special. And I know the Spanish, Arroz y frijoles, to make it sound exotic.
When you get the stock boiling, add the rice and stir, turn it down and let it simmer. Rice doesn’t like to cook too quickly. Then you can prepare the other ingredients at your leisure. Of course that means using a frying pan and a pot, defying the one pot principle.
And I still don’t know what I’m taking to the pot luck this afternoon.