Cookin' with Mama

This is one of our favorite new recipes; it's rare that I find a recipe that John, Jack and I all enjoy on equal levels. I like it because it's tasty AND it is super-easy. John, hilariously, refers to it as "vegetarian black beans," even though it involves both bacon AND chorizo, but he's from Texas and maybe that's considered vegetarian there (his mom once told me that the reason her collard greens are so good is she doesn't use pork--just bacon. Frankly, I don't care if she's using puppy dogs in her cooking, it's so good.)

Anyway. This is adaped from "The Best American Recipes 2003-2004," which calls it "Instant Brazilian Black Beans."First you want to make some rice. I would tell you how, but I have no idea. I cannot cook rice. I use a rice cooker. You probably should get one. They are awesome.

The recipe says to slice two strips of bacon, but two strips is never enough, so chop up as much bacon as you want, which for me is a lot.

Toss that into a soup pot (I like a Dutch oven) and fry until cripy. Meanwhile, get two or three links of chorizo. This is one of the reasons I like this recipe--you can buy a pack of chorizo, which usually has six links in it. You break those up into either twos or threes, and freeze the ones you won't use. It makes it easy to always have the ingredients for this recipe on hand. Anyway, make sure you get fresh chorizo (meaning it's squishy, not hard.)

Slice open the links, take off the casings and then mush it all up, like so:

Now the bacon should be crispy, so throw the chorizo and two minced cloves of garlic into the pot and cook until the chorizo is brown--about three minutes. Then dump in two cans of Goya black bean soup.

Why is that picture sideways? It's artsy. Also, I have no idea how to rotate it. I did it in my computer, but now it's all wonky. Anyway, just lean your head to the side. Be sure to get the black bean SOUP, not just the black beans. I usually find it in the Hispanic section of the grocery store, not with the rest of the soups. Anyway, add both of those, a cup of hot water and a bay leaf.

Bring that to a boil, then reduce the heat and simmer for 20 minutes. And you're done! Serve over rice.

Don't clean off the plate or anything, because it's not like this picture is going on the internet or anything.

This dish is toddler-approved: