Saturday, September 11, 2010

Pinto beans with sun-dried tomatoes



Our staple lunch or dinner meal at home consists of rice, some form of beans/legumes, vegetables and some non-vegetarian dish.  This week I had wanted to make pinto beans, the only recipe for which I know, is  the Mexican refried beans. I have always bean curious to see how pinto beans would fare when cooked with Indian spices. So this week, when I got a chance to cook them, I decided to use the ingredients mentioned below. But before that, the first thing I had to do straight after arriving home, was to pacify a hungry toddler with ready-to-cook cheese stuffed pasta for the evening.

Ingredients:

Pinto beans (organic) – 1 can
Red onions – one small (chopped)
Tomato – one small (diced)
Garlic – 2 cloves (crushed)
Sun dried tomatoes – about 10 pieces
Cilantro – 0.25 cup chopped & for garnishing
Thai green chillies - 1
Olive oil -3 tbsp
Cumin powder – 0.5 tbsp
Turmeric – 1tsp
Paprika – 1 tsp
Garam masala – 1 tsp
Coffee mate/milk powder (unflavored)/cream – 1tbsp
Butter/ghee – 2tsp
Salt to taste

After serving dinner to the little one and letting her spend some time on her own with the food, I quickly moved towards to the gas stove and added the olive oil to a saucepan.  The crushed garlic, chopped onions and fresh tomato were added to the saucepan on a medium-high flame. While this cooked, I dashed back to the dinner table to help the little one finish dinner.  She gets pretty upset on realizing that she is the only one having to eat -- as if eating is a task! Although on most days, I try to have a family dinner together, it is not always possible. So on this particular evening, in the midst of letting her feed herself and cooking myself, I sometimes let her feed me with her little hands too.  The play act made her immensely happy and she continued munching on her food while I ran back to the kitchen. When it comes to multi-tasking, moms rock!

One thing I like about canned beans is that they are already cooked. I prefer organic ones, which contain just the beans, salt and water, and I don’t have to worry about preservatives. Using an electric can opener (I don’t have the luxury of time for a manual one any more), I opened the can in a matter of seconds and drained out the top syrupy portion of the liquid. To the saucepan, I added the ground spices (turmeric, paprika, cumin, garam masala, salt) and let it cook for another minute or two. Again, back to the dining table and some more play acting. By this time, dinner was coming towards the end and my daughter was growing more and more restless, eager to get out of her chair.  Just then my husband arrived and her whole attention shifted from mom to dad. What a relief! I left the two to catch up on their day and hopped happily towards the stove.

I added the canned beans & sundried tomatoes at this time along with a cup of water little and let it boil for about 15 minutes. Meanwhile, I added some cold water to the coffee mate (I did not have cream at home and read somewhere that this works as a substitute and can also be fat free). I also washed & chopped the cilantro & thai green chilli.  When the 15 minutes were over, I added the coffeemate, ghee, cilantro and the chilli, and turned off the heat.

At dinner, when I told my husband that this would this week’s recipe, he commented: “It tastes really good but does it look blog-worthy?”  That made me think. But then I said to myself, “My blog is about home-cooked food. So why not?” I decided to put this dish to two tests to see if it is blog-worthy.

For the first test, I put the dish at the mercy of my two-year old toddler. I had to ensure she would be hungry when offered this food, because kids, unlike adults, will eat only if they are hungry.  So, when she returned home from childcare the next day, I presented to her some freshly cooked tortilla and the beans for dinner. She gobbled it up! Yay, it passed the first test!

For the second test, I decided to put it up for readers. Why don’t you try it and let me know if this was blog-worthy? :)

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