Pinto Beans....Brazilian Style

So when our oldest was returning home from his mission, I asked him what he would like to eat and if he was interested in eating any more rice and beans or if he was sick of them.  His response, "Mom, if rice and beans aren't on the table, I'm not eating.  But you have to learn to make them right."  There's a right way?

When he arrived home, he taught me the right way.  Here it is:

3 C Dry Pinto Beans.

Cook your beans in 6 C of water.  You can either cook them in a pressure cooker (in which case you will not need 6 C. of water, see cooker instructions for amounts) for an hour before you are ready to season them, or you can cook them on the stove top (begin cooking in the morning and watch the water levels, you may need to add more water), or put them in the crock pot (first thing in the morning, cook on high for six hours).  Because of our cook top, I prefer the crock pot method.  Before we changed out the stove top, I preferred the pressure cooker method, mostly because of the time factor.

After your beans are cooked, start heating 3 tablespoons of oil over medium heat, in the pot you plan on seasoning the beans in.  Saute 1 medium onion (more or less to your liking), 1 bell pepper (I like the orange, yellow, or red ones), and 1 tbls chopped garlic.  When soft, add 2 tbls salt, and 1 tbls cumin.  To this, add the beans and whatever water is left in them after they have cooked, and 3 bay leaves.

before the salt, bay leave, and beans

Cook over low to medium heat for a couple of hours, to reduce water.  Cook until beans reach desired consistency.  Remove bay leaves.  Serve over rice.  Garnish with tomatoes, avocado, cilantro, and maybe a squirt of lime.  Enjoy!!

Slim says beans and rice are served every meal in Brazil.  They are made early in the morning and left on the stove top all day.  The main meal is lunch, so they are ready in time to be served then.  Usually they are served with some sort of fried meat and a salad that uses lime juice as the salad dressing.  In our efforts to curtail our meat consumption, we have been eating this dish as the main course, with or without a salad.  We just put them in the refrigerator for the next day.  Sometimes we will have tacos or enchiladas with the left overs.  I also found a similar recipe, but with black beans in the Weight Watcher's cookbook.  It adds chipotle pepper and the cilantro and tomatoes are cooked into the recipe.  It is delicious!  Let me know if you'd like that one and I will see if I can post it.