Lunchbox Tuesday: Beans, Rice. Beans, Beans, ‘n’ Rice.

Every time I make beans and rice, I can’t help but think of this. (Surprised?)

Whipping up a batch of beans ‘n’ rice is so easy and make awesome leftovers to take in your packed lunch. Today, I opened up my thermos and all my friends started exclaiming how good it smelled!

Today’s lunchbox consisted of the aforementioned beans ‘n’ rice, a tasty salad, and of course my wonderful $2 reusable water bottle plastered with Herbivore stickers (okay, you can only see one in this picture but there’s one on the other side too).

I almost never pack salads, but I don’t know why because they’re so easy and healthy! Seriously, I whipped this up last minute before leaving the house just for you, MoFo. It took about 4 minutes. This is my favorite salad to make (when I actually do so). It consists of baby spinach, bell pepper, tomato, avocado, black olives, and salsa. I had 2 lonesome pieces of smoked tofu leftover from last week so I threw those right on top.

I love this Thermos! I started off the school year without it, and kept complaining that I didn’t have a proper container for soups or other warm foods so my dad bought me one. Unfortunately it doesn’t make for very photogenic food porn, but you get the idea!

I also love this recipe for beans ‘n’ rice. I threw it together on a whim a few weeks ago, and it was so amazing I couldn’t stop eating it! The secret is really in the liquid smoke which adds a nice depth of flavor. The wine does too, but if you don’t have any it’s ok to leave it out.

Funny story about the wine in this recipe, actually. I was talking to my mom (who is omni and not big on cooking, but has been trying out a LOT more vegan recipes lately–go Mom!!) about wishing I had vegan sausage because upon taking a quick glance of recipes online I saw a lot of Louisiana-style beans ‘n’ rice recipes calling for sausage and that sounded good to me. Turns out, right before I walked in she had been reading (I forget in which book) that suggested adding wine to recipes that called for sausage, in place of the sausage. Weird, but it sounded good and we had wine so voila!

So So Vegan Beans ‘n’ Rice

1 tablespoon olive oil
1 small onion, sliced thinly
2-3 cloves garlic, chopped
1/2 teaspoon red pepper flakes (optional)
3/4 teaspoon dried thyme
1/2 (15-oz) can tomatoes (crushed, diced, it doesn’t matter)
1 can dark red kidney beans, drained and rinsed
1/2 teaspoon liquid smoke
1/4 cup wine *or* 2 tablespoons Bragg’s Liquid Aminos or tamari sauce
1 cup cooked rice (I use long grain brown)

In a cast iron pan over medium heat, saute the onion in the olive oil until translucent. Add the garlic and saute for about a minute. Add spices and tomatoes and stir. Mix in the beans. Add liquid smoke and wine or Bragg’s and stir. Cook on medium-low until much of the liquid is evaporated (about 5 more minutes). Mix in the rice.

Optional: If you happen to have some faux meat (sausages, pepperoni, etc) you’re trying to use up, chop it up and throw it in! The beans ‘n’ rice pictured has some chopped up vegan pepperoni leftover from my pizzas mixed in.

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The Cheap Vegan

A common argument people use against veganism is that it is more expensive. Well, if you use lots of prepackaged foods and meat analogues it is, but it certainly doesn’t have to be. People who switch to a vegan diet rich in homemade meals and whole foods find that their grocery bills are smaller when they stop buying meat.

When you look at the history of food eaten during economic hard times, you will find a lot of vegetarian and vegan options. In Japan, flour was expensive so they used cabbage as a filler in pancakes, creating okonomiyaki. Beans and rice is a staple in many low-income countries. Potatoes are a common cheap food that fills you up. And you don’t need meat to add flavor to them, just add spices! While spices may be expensive at first, they last you a while… or you can always go to an ethnic foods store to get them dirt cheap!

My mom made a vegan St. Patrick’s day soup a few weeks ago, and when I did a quick Google of St. Patrick’s day soups the first thing that came up was this (NV) recipe which stated that “Irish bacon is a gourmet treat.” It’s more expensive, and used in small amounts just to add flavoring instead of massive, ridiculously cheap (in comparison) slabs we see in present day America.

Yes, even though I started out by saying grocery bills are smaller when they do not include  meat, it is cheaper than ever before. This is due in part to factory farming “technology” (read: inhumanity), but also to the huge government subsidies given to the meat, dairy, and egg industries. What a waste of government spending, as pointed out in this article. We can’t all be like Ana Pascal in Stranger Than Fiction and refuse to pay that part of our taxes, but we CAN all stop DIRECTLY supporting these industries by going vegan!

So now enough of the ranting about how things are run and on to the recipes. Cheap, delicious vegan food, here I come.

 

Okonomiyaki

This food was introduced to me by a friend at Farm Sanctuary. She made it for us once and it was wonderful, so a few weeks ago I texted her asking how to make it and this what she gave me:

“Mix [the shredded cabbage] with some flour and water and some spices maybe like curry and ginger and fry it in a pan”

Wonderful! Simple! And I apologize for not having a more specific recipe for you hard-core recipe followers. Once you have your okonomiyaki fried up, drizzle some okonomiyaki sauce on it (or make your own ghetto sauce by mixing ketchup with some soy sauce) and add a dollop of veganaise on top if you swing that way. Then say “okonomiyaki” 10 more times because it’s just so fun to say!

 

The St. Patrick’s day soup was from 1,000 vegetarian recipes.

 

My beans and rice recipe will be posted next Tuesday for Lunch Box Tuesday, so keep checking! I’ll update this post with a link when it’s up.

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