Asian Black Beans & Rice

Thank you all for telling me about your favorite substitutes. Here are a few of your suggestions:

• Stephanie substitutes white vinegar for traditional household cleaners
• Erin adds turmeric to most dishes to replace or in addition to cayenne or paprika
• Anne Marie likes to replace breadcrumbs with oatmeal
• Winterjade uses banana instead of eggs in her pancakes

And the winner of the Substituting Ingredients book is…Megan D of the Oatmeal Diaries- wahooo! Congrats! Email me at Itzyskitchen at gmail dot com and I will get your book to you.

The rest of my week has been a lot more easy/peasy! I’ve been having to take Frank for his walks early in the morning (5 or 6 AM) due to the heat! Even at that time, its still almost 80 degrees and humid. I love it…Frank does not:

I did manage to get a nice run in on Wednesday. It was cloudy so the heat wasn’t too bad. I set out to do 50 minutes and ended going a bit over, but covered about 6.3 miles:

Wednesday night, I used inspiration from No Meat Athlete to make a new take on beans and rice. The dish doesn’t look gorgeous but tasted great! 

 

  I adjusted Erin’s recipe just a bit:

Ingredients:

• 1 cup cooked brown rice
• 1 15 oz can reduced sodium black beans (drained & rinsed)
• 1 small container pineapple tidbits (juice reserved)
• 1 small container water chestnuts
• 3 large carrots, cut into strips
• 2 tablespoons reduced sodium soy sauce
• 1 tablespoon vegetable oil
• 1/8 teaspoon ground red pepper
• 1/2 teaspoon Chinese 5 spice powder

Directions:

Mix 5 spice powder in with cooked rice and set aside.

Heat vegetable oil. Add carrots and red pepper and cook for a minute or two. Add beans and water chestnuts and cook until carrots are cooked through but still crunchy (as Erin noted :)). Remove from heat. Add soy sauce, 1/3 the reserved pineapple juice and pineapple. Place on top of rice.

I’m off to meet my friend Jill for some brunch and then its work time! Weekend plans??