ted's Black Beans & Rice

A delicious, nutritious Caribbean favorite. There are many recipes; this is one I made up on rainy afternoon is St. Louis to serve up with some jerk chicken. Super quick and simple, and a big hit.

Ingredients:

• 2 servings white rice, cooked


• 1 15-ounce can black beans, with liquid


• 1 teaspoon ground cumin


• 1 teaspoon oregano


• ½ teaspoon sugar


• 1 tablespoon cider vinegar


• Slap Ya Mama Cajun Seasoning, to taste (can make your own mix of cayenne pepper, black pepper, salt and garlic)


• 2 cloves garlic, minced


• water

Directions:
Cook the rice as you usually do. While the rice is cooking, open the beans and pour the entire contents out into a medium sauce pan. Add the spices, adjusting the amounts to taste, and stir.

When the rice is finished cooking, add it to the beans and spice mixture and stir. Add water if necessary to make it just a bit saucy. Put the pan on medium heat and heat the rice through. Serve.

(Serves 4)

Add a little chicken broth to the rice as you cook it to make it a bit more flavorful.

You can find Slap Ya Mama Cajun Seasoning at http://www.slapyamama.com/. I don't work for those guys, but that's the best Cajun seasoning in the world (thanks to Joe Horton for turning me on to it!). Have some more Slap Ya Mama on hand in case this recipe isn't spicy enough as it is.

Happens Every Day

After making omelettes du fromage et jambon this morning for my kids and myself, I finished Happens Every Day: An All-Too-True Story, by Isabel Gillies (which I read on my Kindle 2). This is a quick read, not the kind of nonfiction I usually read but really good, I thought. It's the story of a woman with a storybook life, and how she was robbed of it. It's the best kind of story, in that it's simple, powerful, and so well-told and easy to relate to that it almost seems familiar. I thoroughly enjoyed it, and I hope you will, too.