Easy & Fast Beans & Rice

Wendy's having a drawing for a cookbook, and to enter one needs to post a recipe of the fast, tasty, healthy variety. Here's mine. Easy & Fast Beans & Rice This is more of an outline or template than a recipe. Each incarnation will be a little different! It's great for using up leftovers. Bare Minimum Ingredients: Rice Canned Beans (same weight can as the tomatoes), drained & rinsed if you like Canned Seasoned Stewed Tomatoes (same weight can as the beans), save the juice Chopped onion (fresh, frozen, or dried) Optional Ingredients: Olive oil Other fresh, frozen, or canned vegetables (corn is good as it combines with beans to make complete protein) in a quantity proportional to the beans and to your fondness for them Already cooked meat or poultry Broth, soup, or vegetable/tomato juice Garnishment such a shredded cheese, olives, chives, salsa, soy sauce, etc. 1. Start some (a cup or more) rice cooking using your preferred method and ingredients. 2. In a sauce pan big enough to hold everything, heat the tomato liquid and optional olive oil. 3. Add the onion and simmer & stir until transparent. Other fresh chopped vegetables can be added with with onion. 4. Add the tomatoes, beans, and any other vegetables, stirring everything together. Cover and simmer, adding water or other appropriate liquid if needed. Stir once in a while. Note: If your tomatoes were plain, you'll want to add seasonings to taste. 5. If you didn't get too crazy with chopping everything and you didn't use instant rice, the beans and the rice should be ready about the same time. Put some rice in a bowl, add some beans on top. Garnish if desired. Note of the DUH variety: If you want the rice and beans to come out "even," mix them together before serving. My favorite combination is red kidney beans, Mexican flavored tomatoes, fresh yellow onion, frozen corn, and long grain white rice (not instant) in my rice cooker. Yum!

Returning with 'Poo-free Hair

Last May, Kathy at A Vast Amount of Spare Time posted about not using shampoo to wash her hair. Hmm, I thought. Maybe this will cure those little bumps I get on my scalp. After some experimenting, denial, and accidental or unavoidable use of shampoo, I've settled on a variation of her baking soda and vinegar regimen.

In my shower, I keep a former shampoo bottle (well rinsed!) that has a small dispensing hole (a dish detergent bottle would work, too) with baking soda and water. I start with 1/2 soda, but as the level falls with use, I add water. The quantity of soda isn't critical and depends on how much hair and how big a head you have. If you don't have a funnel for the soda, mix the solution in a pitcher or big measuring cup and pour into the bottle. I also keep a spray bottle filled with water and vinegar (Kathy suggests apple cider, but I had white on hand), about 1/4 vinegar.

To clean my hair, I wet it well, shake the soda bottle (finger over the hole) and apply a spiral on my hair (usual two circuits starting near the edge and finishing near the crown), massage into the scalp with my fingertips, rub all over with my palms and fingers, and rinse well. (You'll get some dribble and you can use it to clean behind/in your ears or even your face and neck. It's mildly abrasive which can be good.) Once the soda is rinsed out and my hair is still very wet, I grab the vinegar spray bottle, close my eyes, spray a few times (maybe 4, again, your mileage may vary) around my head, rub it around around a little bit to distribute, and rinse. You can, if you wish, use the vinegar rinse on alternate days or even less frequently. It does ensure there's no soda left in the hair and makes your hair shinier than with soda alone.

I found the measuring cup method to be cumbersome and much prefer the premixed solutions. And it did take a week to get my scalp and hair used to the change. Those little scalp bumps don't appear when I use the soda and vinegar, either. Even baby shampoo causes them. Additional benefits of this system are its very low cost and small environmental impact.

Regarding knitting, I'll have posts about completed projects (including my Mystery Stole 3), my new-to-me spinning wheel and an incredible fiber purchase via Craigslist, and so on soon. I've been a bad blogger.

Grandma's Spice Sauce

My grandma spent her youth as a professional musician in the Weber Junior Orchestra touring the US and Canada. Here she is, leftmost in the front row with her mandolin:



Grandma, who I loved dearly, wasn't the greatest cook, but she tried hard and had some tried-and-true recipes. Grandpa had paid for cooking lessons when they married. She used to make Spice Sauce to drizzle over pie, cobbler, and ice cream (not all at the same time, usually!). My sister recently asked if I had the recipe, since I am Keeper of Grandma's Recipe Box. The wooden box is labeled inside with her maiden name and "From Elgie 1919." It appears that my grandpa knew what grandma's cooking skills were like going in. LOL

Anyway, I found the recipe. It was actually in my handwriting; some time in my youth I noticed her card was way beat up and copied it over for her and made another for me at the same time.

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Grandma's Spice Sauce Blend in a small saucepan: 2 T flour 1/2 t nutmeg 1/2 t cinnamon 1/2 t salt 3 T sugar 1 1/2 c hot water Cook slowly, stirring constantly until thickened. Stir in until melted: 1 T butter or margarine Serve hot over pie, ice cream, cobbler, or anything else you fancy.

I was telling Louise about it today, and she mentioned making a similar sauce but with lemon juice and rind to put on gingerbread. A little googling later, I found these two Mrs Beaton traditional recipes. I wonder how they'd be over berries?