Puerto Rican Rice and Beans

This was a labor of love (and frugality). First I had to remember to soak the pinto beans. This morning, I cooked the beans (with a soupcon of slab bacon and a generous clove of garlic) and cooked the rice. 1/2 lb of beans, 1 cup of rice.

Then I made the Sofrito. I even had the little packet of seasoning that makes it "authentic." Chopping and slicing galore.

Whew! Now for the final assembly, with more chopping and slicing of tomato, jalapneo, red bell pepper, onion, garlic, ham, slab bacon. Salty as hell. Probably due to the slab bacon, the ham and even the tomato sauce.

Add cooked rice and beans and sprinkle whole mess generously with chopped cilantro. Put a spoonful of the sofrito on each helping. Don't know where my sofrito recipe came from, but it uses salt pork and ham along with the usual ingredients. I substituted slab bacon. I'll print it soon, but in the meantime, there are many sofrito recipes on the web.
Looks like we can eat for 3 days, or 2 days and a lunch. Payoff with be tomorrow when I don't have to cook. The taste is really good, with a lot of punch from the (seeded) jalapenos. I got this recipe off the Web. You will probably have no problem finding one. Try to use as many fresh ingredients as possible. This is a healthy meal without being vegetarian, because the meat is strictly as flavoring.

Here is the recipe I (loosely) used--no pressure cooker, and I made a "sofrito" to serve with it.
http://www.astray.com/recipes/?show=Puerto%20rican%20rice%20and%20beans

Me gusta mucho. It's cool to eat ethnic.

Grapeshot.