Today I made Black Beans over rice. It was VERY yummy. I often cook by using ideas I have gotten from perusing recipes, eating food others have made, and even from watching fast food commercials. I very rarely follow a recipe from beginning to end. I thought it would be fun to have a thread where we share those meals that we create on the fly. The basic recipe doesn't have to be unique, after all, black beans and rice is hardly new, but I added some new things that really made it extra good. I didn't really come up with any of the add-ins myself, but I did put them together in my way.
Saute: 1 diced onion, 2 cloves of garlic
Add: 2 cans of black beans 1 can diced tomatoes
Cook down for a while
Add: 1 tsp (or so) thyme 2-3 tsp Texas Pete hot sauce
Cook down for a while
Serve over rice.
That's it. Very simple. Last week I made a similar dish with pinto beans instead of black beans, and no thyme or hot sauce. It was very good and tasted very different.
So what have you improvised in the kitchen lately?
Save your tried and true recipes for the recipe threads, unless you initially created it from improvisation.
Posted by Goody Scrivener (Member # 6742) on :
Turkey n Dumplings:
Chop up about 1.5 pounds of cooked turkey breast (in my case, leftovers from Christmas dinner that went right to the freezer). Put in large Dutch oven with about 2 quarts water and 2 Tbsp chicken soup base (less salt than boullion and in my opinion better flavor), bring to boil. Add parsley, pepper, about 1/4 cup milk and 2T margarine, simmer for about 15 minutes. Add 1 package pre-made potato gnocchi, simmer another 15 minutes until the dumplings are soft. Serve with fresh bread.
I couldn't find the recipe I've used before for chicken n dumplings, so I tried to remember it best I could, and I wanted to try the potato dumplings for comparison. The kids decided they like when I use canned biscuits (not buttermilk ones) for the dumplings better than when I used gnocchi. Also, using raw meat and cooking it in the boil cycle definitely worked better than cutting up precooked meat.
Posted by Katarain (Member # 6659) on :
Sounds really good.
I forgot that I put diced jalepeno in the pinto bean version. They were in a jar (Mt. Olive), so maybe pickled.
Posted by Uprooted (Member # 8353) on :
Warning to the early-morning squeamish--I eat weird breakfasts.
So I had a little "re-heat" bowl this morning, including:
a mix of couscous and quinoa leftover seasoned chicken filling from tacos some garbanzo beans a piece of Laughing Cow cheese cut into small bits
nuked for a minute, then topped w/ chopped tomatoes. (actually found a tomato this time of year that tastes like a real tomato!)
It was delish.
Posted by Katarain (Member # 6659) on :
What doesn't work...
I bought some red beans and tried to make some red beans and rice last night. I used onion powder and garlic powder instead of sauteing onions and garlic first. I used two cans of red beans and about half of a big can of diced tomatoes. Then I sprinkled in some thyme and plenty of cayenne pepper. It made my eyes water and it didn't really taste like anything but hot. Fail!
Tonight I'm making pinto beans as directed above to go with the leftover rice.