Mexican Rice with Refried Beans

Mexican cuisine is known for its varied hot and tangy flavors, colorful decoration, and variety of spices and ingredients added in each meal, many of which are native to the country. The food is rich in proteins and minerals. In our house, all three of us love Mexican food. I always used to wonder how they get the color for the rice with all the flavour. Then when I saw it was tomato, I was surprised. I found the perfect opportunity to make it. I surprised both of them with this simple rice with re fried beans.

Rice:

Ingredients:

Chopped Onion - 1/2 cup Chopped Green Bell pepper - 1/4 cup Garlic, minced - 1 large clove Long-Grain Rice - 1 cup Tomatoes - 3 medium (chopped) Carrot - 1 medium(chopped) Chili - 1 (chopped) (optional) Chili powder - 1 tsp Ground cumin - 1/4 tsp Vegetable Broth - 1 1/2 - 2 cups Oil - 2 Tb spoon Salt Method:

• In a heavy skillet, heat oil, saute onion, green bell pepper, carrot and garlic until onion is softened.
• Add rice to skillet and fry over medium-high heat until rice has browned.
• Grind the tomatoes and keep aside. Don't add water.
• Add chili powder, salt, vegetable broth and also the tomato puree.
• Bring to a boil; cover, lower heat, and simmer until liquid has been absorbed, about 20 minutes.
• Taste and add more salt if needed.

PS: I have used fresh tomatoes, you can also use 1 can (15 oz) tomatoes.

Adjust the spice according to your taste. If you don't have vegetable broth, you can just add water. Don't add too much water, as the rice should not be mushy.

Refried Beans:

Ingredients:

Pinto beans - cups

Fresh Garlic - 1 Tb spoon

Cumin powder - 1-2 tsp

Chili powder - 1/2 tsp

Pepper powder - 1/4 tsp(optional)

Bay Leaf - 1

Onion - 1/4 cup(finely chopped)

Butter - 1-2 Tb spoons

oil

Salt

Method:

• Rinse the beans and let the beans soak in a large pot overnight. Use plenty of water since the beans expand quite a bit.
• Add Cumin powder, Garlic paste, Bay leaf, Chili powder, pepper powder, salt and boil them for about an hour or so… basically until they are soft (make sure to keep on adding water).
• You want the beans so soft that they are falling apart (it makes it easier to mash them later on).
• After the boiling is complete, you need to empty out a lot of the water… but not too much or else the beans get really dry.
• For starters try emptying out the water so that only the bottom half of the beans are in water.
• Then mash the beans using potato masher.
• The consistency of the beans should not be uniform.
• In a large pan, heat 2 Tbs of olive oil and saute onions.
• Reduce to a low heat. Add the beans to the sauteed onions. Mix in 1-2 Tbs of butter.
• Now the re-frying begins. Don’t re-fry for too long; it tends to dry out the beans. And don’t let them burn.
• If the beans get too dry, add the bean water which was emptied out.
• Serve with Rice and sauteed corn.

Mexican Rice and Refried Beans goes to "It's a Vegan World-Mexican" hosted by Vaishali of "It's a Vegan World"

Mexican Rice goes to Sanghi of "Sanghi's Tasty Bites" blogs new event "Fall in Love-Tomato".

Mexican rice with refried beans is off to " WYF- Cuisine" hosted by EC of "Simple Indian Food- An Easy Cooking Blog "