Black Beans and “Rice”

Ingredients:

1.  1 cup yellow, red and orange peppers diced

2.  1 medium onion diced

3.  1 can of black beans, drained and rinsed

4.  1 cup vegetable broth

5.  1 tablespoon cumin

6.  2 teaspoons each of salt, pepper, dried basil and coriander.

7.  1 head of cauliflower “riced”.  This refers to taking a head of cauliflower and grating it so that it is the size and consistency of white rice.  Not as small as doing a cauliflower pizza crust, but close.

Recipe:

1.  Saute the onions, peppers with about 2 tablespoons of the vegetable broth.

2.  When soft, add the spices and saute for about 3 minutes, it should smell pretty awesome

3.  Add the vegetable stock and black beans. Bring to a boil.

4.  Cover with a lid and turn the heat to medium low and simmer for the amount of time it takes you to grate your cauliflower.

With the cauliflower, you can do a couple of different things.  If you want a more “al dente” feel, do not cook it, the heat from your bean mixture will make it plenty hot enough.  So just put it on a plate and pour some black bean mixture over it.  If you want a softer feel, then microwave the whole cauliflower for about 4 minutes before you grate/dice it.  Once ti cools, you will notice it is a little softer.  Choice is yours.  Picture above is the more “al dente” version.

Black Bean Miso Stew

Ingredients

1.  4 tblspoons of Yellow Miso Paste

2.  4 carrots, cut into 2in segments

3.  3 stalks of celery, cut into 1in segments

4.  1 can of black beans, drained and rinsed

5.  2 tblspoons minced garlic

6.  1 tblspoon dried basil

7.  1 medium onion coarsely chopped

8.  1 cup of spinach

9. 1 teaspoon sesame oil

10.  3 cups of water (clean water is best)

11.  1/2 lemon juiced

12.  1 teaspoon each of salt and pepper

Recipe

1.  Combine carrots, onions, celery, garlic and spinach in to a pan with the sesame oil, salt, pepper and basil.

2.  Sweat the ingredient for about 4 minutes or so, you want the onions to start sweating more than anything.  This is done over medium heat.

3.  Add the miso paste and lemon juice and stir briskly, the paste should loosen up a little.

4. Add the water and black beans and scrape the pan for anything that has stuck (you are deglazing without using alcohol or acid here)

5.  Stir briskly to get the miso combined with the water.

6.  Cover and cook on medium heat for 30 minutes.  Then remove from heat and leave covered for another 10 minutes.

The stew will be good at this point, but will really come together the next day.  The above recipe makes 4 servings.