Hello, AZ, and welcome to my tiny-ass kitchen. Today we will be making some rice and beans. Now, some people, like, say, Spoony will tell you that beans are the culinary embodiment of despair. Well, he can't be right all the time. If you actually season them, they turn out pretty good. Plus, they're pretty much the cheapest complete protein you can make. Rice and beans have virtually no fat in them unless you fry them (I don't), and are pretty rich in various vitamins and minerals.
GOOD TIME TO MAKE THIS: Pretty much any time. just about everything except the Avocado is dirt cheap all the time, and that part is optional.
ESTIMATED COST OF LARGE BATCH: $3.50-4 USD
ESTIMATED COST OF INDIVIDUAL PLATE: $0.50-.60
If you use 1 oz of cheddar cheese, add $0.30 per plate
If you have half an avocado, add $0.75 per plate
All costs are estimated with the idea that you look for specials, with the realistic consideration that not everything will be on sale all the time. Try to not just plan your shopping around your cooking plan, but have a few ideas, and select your cooking plan based off of what you see shopping (still bring a list, though. Just keep in mind that you can opt out of some things and get them later)
INGREDIENTS:
2-3 cups BEANS (go figure)
2 cups RICE (never would have guessed)
4 cups of Broth
1 Plain Yellow Onion
Garlic
3 Roma Tomatoes
Salt
Chili Powder
Paprika
Optional: Avocado, Cheese
RECOMMENDED MATERIALS:
Wooden spoon for stirring
Cutting board
serrated steak knife
Comfortable chopping knife
Measuring cups
Large soup pot that comfortably holds at least a half gallon
Collander
Large food storage container
OKAY SO
Something to keep in mind whenever cooking rice or most beans, is that they will typically just about triple in volume between their dry and fully prepared forms. Think like Digimon only tastier. So when you're looking at two cups of dried beans and going "there is no way in hell this more than a dinner and a half", keep that in mind. Also, they're more filling than what you think.
BEANS: If you're working with dry beans (which is what I recommend for the sake of budget), you'll need to soak them first. There is a quick soak, buuuuuut the long soak is easier and just requires you to think of it the night before.
A word on bean selection: Pinto beans are probably the most commonly used beans in the United States. Black beans are most likely a close second. For this type of thing, I usually make pintos, although I'll occasionally switch it up with black beans (which can be almost twice as expensive). This time, I use pintos. yaaaaay. They don't have to be a particular brand. When they're dry, beans are beans.
Kay, so now you dump the 2 or so cups (You don't have to be super precise on this part) into a large soup pot, it should look about like this
Then just cover that about three quarters full with water, shove a lid on it, and pop it in the fridge overnight.
And then, when you come back to it the next day, you'll have a fully prepared meal waiting for you by candlelight.
no. that's dumb.
What you will have is significantly larger beans.
Now that they're all plumped up like a has-been actress, rinse them off.
After that, set them in the pot with more water (make sure the beans are totally covered) and turn it to high heat.
We get to work on flavorings at this point. If you already know about how much salt you like, go ahead and add it now.
First up, because they take the longest to cook: Onions! Yeahhhh! Take a medium-sized onion (I suppose it can be smaller if you're not super big on the allium), and chop the end off, cutting most of the way through, but letting the knife catch before it goes through the last layer. this will give you a very easy start to peeling the onion.
Chop up the onion in medium sized chunks:
And drop them into the pot with the beans.
Now you get crackin' on your garlic. I would say use about this much:
But I reeeeeeeally like garlic, so you might want to drop a clove or two from that.
A common complaint when working with garlic is that it's a pain in the a
ss to peel and that because you spend so long touching it, your hands reek of it afterward.
Here's a really easy and quick way to take care of the pungent little teeth.
Take the little nubbly root end of the garlic and just cut that very end off. Similar to the onion, it gives you an open place to start, and a quick end of the layer.
Now chop it up finely and toss it in with the beans.
At this point, you can set a timer for 1 hour. Keep the beans boiling the entire time. Add a little water whenever necessary.
So you'll have a little bit of down time. you can use this to make the rice and grate some cheese if you want.
But we're beheading three roma tomatoes first, mwahahaha.
Here's where the serrated steak knife comes in handy. unless you have REALLY sharp knives, it's a pain in the butt to cut soft produce with just a basic chef's knife. the steak knife can slice into the skin of the tomatoes instead of just squishing them. So yeah. Chop those suckers up like that one guy in that one movie.
Once the timer goes off, add your tomatoes. The reason that you want to wait until the beans are already cooked, is because acidic ingredients (like tomatoes) will make the beans all tough and gross if you have them in there before the beans are all done soaking up the heat and water.
And Spices! Yay!
I have Paprika and Chile powder here. If you haven;t added salt yet, now is the time. the beans are done cooking so that you can kind of taste test them.
Anyways! Spices yes. I got both of these in a discount section, the paprika was 50 cents, and the Chili powder was a dollar.
This is about the ratio I'd recommend. Dark red is chili, orange is paprika.
Stir it all up and let it just pop it in a food storage container. They'll stay hot for a good long while.
RICE:You can either make this during the down time on the beans, or, if you only have one working soup pot and don't trust yourself to remember numbers, you can do this while the beans are relaxing in the storage container.
You can make either 1 or 2 cups of rice, depending on how much you plan to eat. Start by pouring either 2 or 4 cups (respectively) of broth into the pan, and bring it to a boil.
Quick note on broth here: you can just use actual broth, which does technically have a better quality a lot of the time. But especially when you're using it to cook something else, bouillon cubes are about 10 times cheaper. In this case, I used vegetable bouillon, but you can use whatever kind you like.
To make the right amount of liquid, follow the directions on the container (some of them might be different, I don't know).
SO ANYWAY, broth. get it steamy. Yes.
Put your 1 or 2 cups of rice into the boiling broth and stir it so that it's all in contact with the liquid.
Turn the heat down to low and set a timer for 20 mintues.
And then you just leave it alone. Don't touch it, don't stir it, don't even look at it. You want the steam to build up in there, because that's what cooks the rice in that nice fluffy way that we actually like. it'll turn into a mess of mush if you open it and stir even once.
HEY.
Alright, so ding, 20 minutes are up, remove it from heat and let it sit for five or so minutes before you stir it with a fork to get it all fluffy and ricy.
At this point, if you like avocado (and maybe even if you don't so much), you want to get crackin on it. Take the serrated knife and slice around the avocado until the blade hits the pit.
Then twist the two halves from each other to get a clean split
Thwap a knife into the pit and just kind of roll it out of the other half.
cut the shell of the avocado so that it peels off easily
Slice it up, squish it flat so that you've got a ribbon of green goodness,
And then put it all on your plate. Om nom nom. Rice and beans that don't taste like sadness.
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