Rice and Beans
Hubby loves to cook and rice and beans is one of his favorite things to make. His father came to the US from Cuba back in the 70s (I was just corrected. It was 1967) and taught Hubby to make a few classic dishes. This recipe is the quick version of rice and beans. It uses canned beans and doesn’t take long to throw together at all. We eat this meal on a fairly regular basis. It can be made vegetarian by leaving out the chorizo or using soyrizo.
One of the first times our parents met, Hubby’s father made rice and beans for some of us. My little sister, who was nine at the time, claimed she didn’t like rice and beans and wouldn’t eat it. We finally convinced her to try a bite and she ended up eating two platefuls!
We like to serve this over brown rice. And, the beans can be frozen once cooked. Hubby made a couple batches prior to our kitchen renovation and we froze it in individual portions.
One Year Ago: My First Operation Baking Gals
Quick Rice and Beans
Yield: 4-6
Ingredients:
2 cans of beans - garbonzos (chick peas) or kidney beans
1 large yellow onion, chopped
1-2 links of Chorizos, torn into bite sized pieces
4-6 cloves of garlic, mashed in a mortar and pestle
2-3 bay leaves
1 tsp ground coriander
1 green pepper cut in half and into strips (optional)
Olive oil
Directions:
Make the Sofrito
Pour ~2 Tbsp of olive oil into a medium frying pan. Heat on medium and once hot add garlic. Sauté garlic for a few seconds to season the oil. Add onions and peppers before the garlic gets browned. Continue to cook until the onion starts to soften then add chorizo. Cook until the onions are soft and the chorizo juices have spread and the sofrito has an orangy tinge.
Meanwhile, prepare the Beans
Add both cans of beans including the juices to a saucepan. Add some water so that the beans are ~1/2 an inch below the water level. Bring to a boil.
When sofrito is ready, add to beans and mix. Add bay leaves and coriander.
Cover and boil for at least 20 minutes. Ensure that the water level stays above the beans. You can boil the beans for longer to continue to distribute the flavors even more. Remove bay leaves prior to serving. Serve over rice.
Recipe from Hubby
This does look easy and the ingredients seem really flavorful! I love simple meals like this that have a lot of flavor and make great leftovers 🙂
I love Indian Food! I totally agree about the smell of garam masala cooking!
sounds like a delicious easy meal! Great to see you and hubby last night!
BB – what is garam masala? What spices are in it (maybe I can recreate with what I already have).
Looks like an easier dinner made a bit more fun with the Indian twist!
Mom-in-law: I buy garam masala at a small Indian market near our place. I did a quick Google and came up with this recipe.
I love garam masala!!! It’s one of my favorite ingredients.
Yum! I love Indian food and this is a great way to make it at home without a whole lot of work. And pretty healthy, too 🙂
Sues
These Indian spiced beans look great! Thanks so much for the recipe.
This will be cooked in Prague today with minor modifications 🙂 (Occhio beans..)
beantownbaker — January 7th, 2013 @ 8:52 pm
Oh fun! I hope you enjoy them.
Would be helpful if the can size of the tomatoes were provided.