I will make just beans with lots of spices and some diced tomato and onion. It is quite good. Then I'll mix it 50/50 and eat it with rice. Recipe:
- 1-2 tbsp of olive oil for frying
- 2 cans of beans: I often will do red beans, or 1 can red and 1 can black beans. Drain the bean juice out of 1 of the cans and leave it in the other
- 1 clove garlic, minced (or 1 tsp of
pre-minced garlic)
- 1/2 of a medium-large onion, chopped
- 1 can diced tomatoes with juice
- 1 bell pepper, any color, diced (optional, I love peppers)
- 1 tsp smoked paprika (or more, to taste, I'll often use 1/2 tbsp which is 1.5 tsp)
- 1/2-1 tsp chili powder (the
spice blend, not true chili powder)
- 1/2 tsp cumin
- 1/2 tsp iodized salt (there's also salt in the chili powder, so be careful not to add too much
- some
lemon juice (get actual lemon juice, that "ReaLemon" shit is fuckin nasty and very much NOT real, but an illusion of the matrix)
- black pepper to taste
- can add some cayenne if you want a little spice
To be honest, I don't actually
measure the spices when I put them in, I just eyeball what looks good and sprinkle it on then mix it up in the pan. So the spice quantities above may need some adjustment (and always adjust things to your taste anyway). You could also use mainly herbs instead of spices if you wanted to.
1. Add the olive oil to the pan and let it warm up.
2. Add in the garlic, sauté it at medium heat, careful not to let it burn. Burned garlic is fucking disgusting.
3. After about 60-90 seconds, the garlic should start to turn golden. Add in the onion and mix it all up well, then increase the heat to a little above medium (like a 6-7/10)
4. Let the onion sauté for 1-2 mins, then add the chopped bell pepper, mixing it all up again
5. Stir occasionally, let things sauté until they start to soften
6. Add the diced tomatoes and the beans along with all the spices and like 2 tbsp of lemon juice (my lemon juice comes in squirter bottles so I just give it a healthy squirt)
7. Turn up the heat so the mixture is simmering intensely. There should be a lot of evaporation going on (turn on your stove hood if you have one). Be sure to keep the top of the pan off, stirring occasionally. Let the flavors mingle and let the juice evaporate. This takes like 8 minutes or so if I remember correctly.
8. Once the sauce/juice has thickened, turn the heat off and give it one last stir. I will often leave it on the burner for a bit to absorb the leftover heat from my cooktop. Obviously if you have gas this is irrelevant--and if you don't have gas, you will soon unless you take some beano with your first bite of beans! (hardy har har, I am such a funny guy--seriously though beano is awesome when eating beans OR cruciferous veggies, it WILL prevent stomach bloating and stinky farts, it's amazing stuff).
Like I said, usually I mix it with rice, but my girlfriend bakes sourdough all the time, so we might have sourdough with it too. Put some beans on the fresh backed sourdough it's soooo goood. White rice, brown rice. Doesn't matter. I always prefer basmati rice over jasmine. We will air fry some chicken with it, maybe steam some broccoli or green beans (just one more reason to take that beano lol), and you've got yourself a whole meal!
Enjoy!
