Black beans and rice. Nom, nom, nom...

I have been working on being a healthier Andrew again and also have been working on being a more frugal Andrew and spending less on expensive food (so I can afford expensive toys).  To that end, I have been playing around with black beans & rice recipes which allow for a lot of variety and different tastes.  Tonight, I wanted to go spicy with my concoction, and boy, did I get it right...

Ingredients:

3 cups dry long grain white rice
2 cans black beans, drained
2 large, fresh jalapenos (from my garden)
1 red chili pepper (from my garden)
2 cloves garlic
2 medium yellow onions
4 green onions
2 packages sazon
sea salt
olive oil
Tamari to taste
Hot sauce to taste
fresh cilantro

Okay, cook up the white rice in a large saucepan or a rice cooker.  While that gets going, mince the garlic and set aside.  Now, finely chop up the yellow onion and about 1/2 cup of the green onion.  Seed and mince up the jalapenos and the red pepper (be sure to know how spicy the pepper is, I ended up using 1/2 of one).

Heat up some olive oil in a large skillet or a wok over medium-high heat.  When shimmering, toss in the garlic and cook until fragrant, about 30 seconds or so.  Now, add in all the onions and peppers and saute until soft, about 10 minutes or so.  Throw in a couple dashes of sea salt and the sazon and mix it all up, adding some water if necessary to juice it up a bit.  Cook that for about 3 - 5 minutes then throw in the black beans and cook until heated through.

About now, the rice should be done, throw that in and stir everything up.

Taste it, you know you want to...

If it is a little bland on the back of the tongue, throw in some tamari and stir it up for a re-taste.  Don't put in too much at once, but keep adding small amounts until you get it where you want it.  I found mine to be spicy, but still needing something, so I added a few dashes of jalapeno-based hot sauce to brighten it up a bit.  When you get it right, chop up about a cup of cilantro and mix it in...

Dang it's good.

This recipe makes about 8 servings.  I like to have some right away and then have leftovers the next couple of days as the flavors get really nicely complex after sitting for awhile in the fridge.  The recipe also comes in at around 300 calories per serving.  Which is pretty good considering how filling it is.  If you want to get crazy with it, you can cut up some sausage (like a nice chicken sausage) and add it in as well....

Enjoy.