Cuban Black Beans and Rice

I intended this to be a much longer post, but I am short on time as I am between family activities for the day.  We had my oldest's final softball games this morning and my younger daughter needs to be chauffeured to a birthday party in, like, 10 minutes, so this is going to be super fast with the recipe to follow. 

One of my favorite things to cook when I have few ideas, little inspiration and the need to clean a bunch of stuff out of the fridge is beans and rice.  I tend to dislike Cajun food, so I don't typically go for the red beans and rice variety, but I LOVE Cuban food, so I switch it up and reach for black beans, cilantro and tomatoes instead.  I use a pilaf (or even a bit of a risotto) method for cooking the rice - saute onions, garlic and peppers in oil, add rice in on top, saute until chalky and then add liquid to cook the rice grains.  After the rice is almost completely tender, I add drained and rinsed cans of no salt added black beans and whatever else I need to toss in to clear out the crisper drawer.  The other night, I used up a semi-manky poblano chile, onion and tomatoes in our Cuban-style black beans and rice.  (You can make it Southwestern-style black beans and rice by adding in frozen corn kernels or heck, you could make it Thai-style black beans and rice by subbing out jasmine or basmati rice for the brown rice I usually use, adding soy sauce or fish sauce....really, the possibilities are endless.)  So, I also made tostones (fried plantain slices) to go with the beans and rice, which is very Cuban indeed.  My kids, oddly enough, didn't love the plantains (How many bananas do we freaking eat every week?!), but my husband and I find them tasty and a good way to round out a very vegetarian meal.

Anyway, recipe on this is to follow when I have more time and look for a special post tomorrow for Mother's Day.  Until then....