protein power

When I lived in Oregon, I wanted to try making black beans and rice.  I had been introduced to the staple dish during a high school visit to Costa Rica (AMAZING), and I missed it.  I hadn't seen on menus anywhere, but I figured it had to be a pretty simple dish--after all, they serve it at every meal there.  It's as common as a glass of water.

It didn't go very well.  I cooked those damn beans for hours, and they still weren't as soft as they should have been.  Eventually, I gave up because I was hungry and tired and I wanted to eat and go to bed (thus solving two of my three problems; I haven't yet solved the Hard Bean Conundrum).  A couple weeks later, I just cooked a pot of rice, dumped in a (drained) can of black beans, reheated it, and ate it happily.  Much less effort, better results, but still somehow disappointing.

This year, I decided to try red beans and rice.  Maybe a different color softens better?  I used this recipe.  I couldn't find andouille sausage at the Chief Taster Approved farmers' market stall, but they had chorizo, and I'm happy to put that in almost any food.  Really, though, I think I just wanted an excuse to go buy the dry beans at a local Mexican market.  It entertains me to go there.  They have no carts because A: it's too small to bother, and B: there's no way a cart could make any of the turns between those aisles.  It's crowded when you're the only person in there, I can only barely read the labels, and it's filled with high, oddly-organized shelves of brightly colored packages, many of which are so completely foreign to me that I can't even guess what's inside them.  It's like going grocery shopping in Diagon Alley.  I love it.

Cooking beans.  The liquid level went down very slowly.

The good news is, I did a better job with the red beans than I did with the black beans.  The bad news is, that might just be the sausage talking.  The beans were still very firm, though edible.  I think next time I'd like to let them soak longer than just overnight.  Maybe overnight and most of a day, too.  That, or put them on the stove in the morning and let them spend all day cooking, but if I did that, it would have to be on a much colder day.  You don't want to cook anything that long in August.

I swear there's some rice under all those beans.  Really!