Rice and beans

Rice and beans

Serves 3-4

I have to give full credit for this recipe to my daughter Louise. She ate it every night for about six months when she was a student. She made it for us recently and we’ve become addicted. This is a staple dish of many countries and we make no claim that this is an authentic rice and beans recipe, it’s a low budget UK student version. The best thing about this recipe is that you can substitute nearly all ingredients for whatever you have in your cupboards. Any green vegetable will do – broccoli, spinach, kale, green beans, asparagus – whatever you’ve got either fresh or in the freezer.  Likewise, you can use any beans you might have in the cupboard – black beans are great, as are cannellini beans, borlotti beans or even chickpeas. 

Ingredients:
300g brown rice
1 x 400g tin butter beans
1 x 400g tin kidney beans (or whatever beans you have in the cupboard)
1 x tblsp olive oil plus more for drizzling
100g chopped kale (or spinach, or any green vegetable)
1 tsp salt
½ tsp pepper
1 tsp chilli flakes (or cayenne and paprika – whatever spices you like, so long as they have a bit of heat)
1 tsp garlic powder
1 tblsp nutritional yeast
15g grated vegan cheese
Hot sauce
Fresh coriander  (if you’ve got it, don’t worry if you haven’t)

Method:
Cook rice with boiling water and a pinch of salt (everyone has their own method of cooking rice, just do it however you swear by doing it…). 
Put a large frying pan onto a low heat, add the olive oil.
Rinse beans under cold tap and add to pan.
Wash the kale, and add to the beans. Add another drizzle of olive oil, salt, pepper, chilli flakes or whatever spices you like – paprika, cayenne (something with a bit of heat), garlic powder. Cook until veggies and beans are well fried, then add the nutritional yeast.
While you’re waiting for the brown rice to cook, have a glass of wine or whatever else is keeping you semi-sane at the moment….
Drain the cooked rice and add to the pan with the beans and vegetables.
Stir well and cook for a further five minutes, adding another drizzle of oil.
Add the vegan cheese and mix thoroughly.
Divide into bowls, drizzle liberally with hot sauce and fresh coriander if you have it.

                                                 ****************************

Look – I think you should all be vegan, OK? OK? But I appreciate you’re not all there yet (don’t worry, you’ll get there….). If you’re not vegan, you can obviously add non-vegan grated cheese in place of my vegan cheese. Nutritional yeast is the vegan’s best friend (we don’t have any actual best friends because we’re obviously annoying as hell….), and I always use it to give things a delicious cheesy-ness. If you don’t have nutritional yeast (you really don’t know what you’re missing), you can just add cheese and plenty of seasoning.




Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Dhal and homemade naan

Image
Dhal and homemade naan  Serves 3-4 The dhal recipe is stolen from Delicious magazine, but as our store cupboards and fresh herbs and vegetables run a bit low, I’ve adapted it to a more basic version. Also, we tried to buy yeast in the supermarket a couple of weeks ago, with no success so we made a yeast-free naan which still tastes pretty good. Dhal: 300g red lentils 400ml tin of coconut milk 400g tin chopped tomatoes vegetable oil 2 tsp curry powder 1 tsp crushed coriander seeds 1 tsp chilli flakes 100g chopped kale  1 tsp chilli flakes Naan: 210g plain flour 1 tsp sugar 1 tsp salt ½ tsp baking powder 1 tsp ground cumin 1tsp crushed coriander seeds 1 tblsp olive oil 120ml oat milk (or any plant based milk) vegetable oil Method: Put the lentils in a large, heavy based, pan with a pinch of salt, the tin of coconut milk and 600ml water. Bring to the boil and simmer for 10 minutes. Add the tin of tomatoes and simmer for 3
Read more

Pret chocolate & almond cookies

Image
Pret chocolate & almond cookies Makes around 18 My favourite high street vegan cookies, and they just published their recipe!! I didn’t have any almond butter, so I had to use peanut butter instead, I only had 50g of chocolate so that’s all I used but I’d recommend adding a bit more - I added the ground almonds and oat milk, and I changed quantities around slightly because I can’t possibly just stick to a recipe…. Make sure you take them out of the oven slightly before you think they’re ready, so they’re soft in the middle and just baked on the edges.  Pret’s recipe says that this quantity of dough makes 8 – 10 cookies but I prefer to make 18 smaller, thicker ones. Ingredients: 40g Caster sugar 110g Soft light brown sugar 1 tsp Salt 30g flaked almonds 80g Dark chocolate, roughly chopped 205g Plain flour 20g Cocoa powder 1/2 tsp baking powder 35g ground almonds 65g Coconut oil, melted 60g peanut butter 100g Golden syrup 35ml oat milk  (add a bit more if you can’
Read more