R&B Days 1-3

So I woke up this morning, looked in the mirror, and guess what I saw?  Rice. Yep, I had rice stuck in my hair.  And obviously I had slept with it that way all night.  As if my rumbling stomach and the ever-growing aroma in our house wasn't enough of a reminder of our current nightly eating habits.

So far we are really enjoying ourselves with our r&b.  Not without a little Ewen-ness thrown in though.  =)  The first night we decided to make a Mexican style rice and just plain pinto beans on the side that we had soaked the night before.  I started the rice and then began boiling the beans and left the kitchen.  At about the time they should have been done (and time to eat!) I realized I was smelling something burning.  That's when I discovered this:

I completely burnt the rice beyond repair.  Then I tried the beans, and they were still hard in the middles!! How could this be so hard? It looked so simple when Kabang did it (http://lahash.blogspot.com/2011/02/cooking-with-kabang.html) so what did I do wrong?  So I made a completely new batch of rice, and added more water to my beans and by the end we had this:



beans, beans, the magical fruit...



And you know what? It was sooo good.  Simple. Satisfying. The kids went back for 3rds!  And I had the leftovers for lunch yesterday (day 2) and today.

Yesterday for dinner I slaved all day.  I soaked butter beans and made this really intricate curry sauce to cook them in.  It ended up looking like this:

Yeah, so I used a bag, so what? =)  Actually it was tasty, but we all agreed that the more simple version the night before was much better.

Tonight we did a simple black bean soup in the crock pot that I got from this recipe; http://allrecipes.com/Recipe/Spicy-Slow-Cooker-Black-Bean-Soup/Detail.aspx. And then had some Thai Jasmine rice for a side.  It was a hit.  Pretty spicy, but really yummy.

I loved hearing Tayvin as we prayed tonight, thanking God for rice and bean month so that he can remember other kids around the world who only get to eat things like rice and beans all the time.  He is getting it. He is understanding why we are doing it.  Not just for the fun of it. But for a purpose.  I was a proud parent tonight.  And I'm thankful for rice and beans too.