Puerto Rican Rice and Beans

The beans (black) are cooking on the stovetop. Rice (brown) is cooked already. I've cooked a mess of peppers, onion, jalapenos, carrots, and garlic with seasonings to add once the beans are cooked. Hmmmm. Think I'll stick in a tomato as well. This was a vegetarian recipe so instead of lightly spraying the skillet with olive oil flavored spray (sheesh!) I put a couple nice tablespoons of bacon grease into the skillet to cook the veggies.

Did you know that bacon fat has less cholesterol than butter? Read that somewhere. No idea if true.

This will be a high-fiber nutricious dish for the winter day we are having.

The Patriots lost. I felt bad for them and good for Indianapolis, but I think I'll be for Chicago in the superbowl. I liked ALL the teams in the playoffs, unusual for me, a tepid fan at best.

While we are on the subject of food, not football: Delicious easy salad.
Peel a cucumber and use your slicing attachment of the food processor to thinly slice or however you want to thinly slice. Remove the sliced cucumber and put the blade into the food processor. (or whatever). Add a little chopped onion (I use scallion tops) plenty of fresh dill, a heaping tablespoon each of sour cream and mayo (low fat acceptable), some salt and pepper and a little milk or cream just to thin. Turn on processor and mix well. Spoon it over the cucumbers until well mixed. The watchword here is obviously "well mixed." Yogurt can be substituted for sour cream. A bit of garlic is not amiss. We ate this with barbeque and baked beans last night and it can't be beat. I had the fresh dill left over from another recipe.

Baked beans. We always used B & M and they never disappoint. I dumped a big can into a casserole (they were vegetarian but any will do). Poked 6-7 grape tomatoes into the beans. On top I put some lightly sauteed (bacon grease again but any fat will do) onion and decorated the top with 1 1/2 inch pieces of lightly fried bacon. Put in a 400 degree oven until bubbling. A spoon or two of barbeque sauce can be used in the beans but this is not necessary. They are so pretty, too. Eye appeal counts big. The cucumbers have that in spades.

Time to check the black beans. Today everything is from scratch.

Eat well; enjoy life; make soup.

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