Crock pot black Beans and Cilantro Lime Rice

Ever since we had Black Beans and Rice at a Brazilian Restaurant in

Salt Lake I have been looking for recipes that sound like they would be

close to the same! After reading lots of reviews of different recipes I

realized that I may just have to figure this out for myself! So, I did!!!

Here is the result:

Black Beans:

I bought a bag of dried black beans from the store and rinsed and soaked them overnight. Then I drained and rinsed them again and added them to my crock pot. I then added 2 cans of chicken stock(vegetable stock would work, as would water) and 2 cups of Water.

I then chopped up fine :

1/2 sweet onion

2 celery stocks

and saute'd them in

1 T. butter

I added:

5 cloves of minced garlic at the very end just as the onions were getting soft

and tossed it in the crock pot with the beans.

I Added some salt and pepper at this point to taste. You may need to add more later.

I cooked 6 hours on High and it didn't feel like it was done to me so I put it back on High and waited another few hours!

At about the 8 hour mark I put my rice in the rice cooker it made about 5 cups.

To this I added 2 T. of rough chopped cilantro and a mixture of

juice of one lime or lemon

1 T. sugar

1 T. rice vinegar.

This gives it a slightly sweet, sour flavor that marries well with the savory black beans. You can easily just use plain rice, brown rice etc!

(this is a variation on the recipe Pat gave me for her rice, I just didn't take the time to look that one up and get the proportions but it worked!)

Just before scooping up the black beans to pour over the rice I tossed in about 1/4 C. Chopped Cilantro and stirred it in.

Next time I try this I want to add some roasted Anaheim Pepper to the veggie part of the mix. I wanted to this time but never had time to run all the way to Safeway to get one!

Notes from my family:

Kent-needs Pork.....lots of pork!(this would of course make it NOT vegetarian)

Kevin-chomp chomp...it's good

Melannie-it's ok

Kat-ew I'm not trying that

Emma & Avril-Plain rice please....

Me....loved it!!!