99 COOKING CAPE

Vegan Black Beans with Onions and Green Peppers on Rice, Fried Plantains, and Salad.

INGREDIENTS:
-4 CUPS of rice.
-1 SMALL BAG of dried black beans.
-1 LARGE onion.
-1 LARGE green pepper.
-2 MEDIUM/LARGE green plantains.
-2 WHOLE garlic clove.
-Olive Oil
-Salt, garlic powder, onion powder.
-Lettuce, tomato, avocado, green olives, whatever salad stuff. (Optional.)

STEPS: Beans
1. Pour the bag of dried beans into an empty pan and pick out any rocks or foreign matter.
2. Black beans, like all dried beans, need to be soaked before being cooked. (The hydration helps to reduce the cooking time.) Since they're small, 2 - 4 hours soaking in cold water should do the trick. Drain and move to step 4 OR if you have less time, skip step 2 and go to step 3.
3. If you don't have a lot of time, boil the beans in water for 1 - 3 minutes, turn off heat, cover the pot, and let them sit for one hour. Drain and follow the rest of the recipe. (The only problem with boiling them instead of soaking them is that they loose a considerable amount of nutrients.)
4. While cooking, add 1 whole diced onion, 1 whole diced green pepper, a few pieces of crushed garlic, and salt to taste along with a bit of garlic powder and onion powder.
5. To cook the beans, drain the soaking water and add cold water, 1 part beans to 2 or 3 parts cold water. Bring to a boil, then reduce heat to a very slow simmer. Simmer for 2 hours.
STEPS: Rice
1. When your beans are about half an hour away from being done, start cooking your rice as the directions say. (Substitute butter for olive oil if rice package calls for butter.)
STEPS: Fried Green Plantains (Tostones)
1. Cut the ends of each plantain off. Cut through the peel horizontally, the entire length of the plantain. Loosen the peel along the cut and remove by hand.
2. Cut the peeled plantain into slices, about 2" to 2 1/2" wide.
3. Fill a large skillet a third of the way full with olive oil and heat over medium-high heat to about 300 degrees F. Once the oil is hot, fry the plantain slices for about 3 to 5 minutes, turning once, just long enough to make them soft.
4. Remove the plantains and drain on paper towels. Use a plantain press (or a brown paper bag folded over) to smash the plantains to about half their thickness, like smashing them into patties.
5. Bring the oil back to a higher temperature (about 375 degrees F.) Fry again, turning occasionally, until golden brown on both sides.
6. Remove from pan. Use paper towels to absorb excess oil.
7. Crush some fresh garlic and mix into a small bowl of a little olive oil. Baste into plantains. Add salt to taste.
STEPS: Salad (Optional)
1. Mix lettuce, tomatoes, cut avocado, green olives, or whatever you want in your salad.
2. Drizzle olive oil and vinegar over salad.

Enjoy!

One of my many spontaneous, random, healthy dishes.

Get a pot. Pour an half-inch of olive oil at the bottom. Cold pressed, virgin oil. Thrown into that chooped red-oignon and some shredded garlic, as well as some slices of squash. Warm that up. Nice and slow. When they start getting softy, add mushrooms. Some sesam seed. Let the garlic take over the mix by covering the pot. Must cook slowly under relative low fire (never get the olive oil to "fry"). At the end, put some fig puree (at least 1 fig per person). The taste won't kick in while tasting the dish, but it would give an hardly known, still detectable, hint of sweeteness and sugar-taste. Try not to fry or stick the puree on the sides of the pot. Try to make it melt and propagate.

Meanwhile, get some turkey. Chop it in bands, say like a thumb. A woman's thumb.
A light, smooth, round marinade: BBQ. Garlic. Honey. Whatever.

Grill, roast, or fry that on high temperature. Has to get burned a bit to awake the flavour, as turkey is kinda tasteless.

Try to synchronize your vegetables and your meat. When the meat is almost done, pour the vegetables in the pan or on the grillpan with the meat. Turn the fire down, let that warm up alltogether. With the speed of a NINJA and a Katana, chop a bell pepper. And a tomato, to get the whole stuff JUICY. Pour it with the rest, mix a bit. Get the whole stuff into a bowl, a cup or something that aint flat. You don't wont to drink olive oil, do you? Start eating at once, the oil is already down the bowl, and it can get cold quickly.

Ginger beer was a great sidekick for this meal, though a bit strong in taste.