Tag Archives: side dish

Cuban-Style Black Beans

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Someday I will make “real” beans.  I mean the kind where you soak dried beans overnight, pick through them for stones (stones, really?!?), and then cook them for hours with seasonings.  But for today I had my hands full with pork carnitas and jicama slaw so I just decided to use a recipe where I can doctor up a basic can of black beans and make them taste like they have been soaking all night and simmering on the stove.  This recipe from SkinnyTaste.com was exactly what I needed.  The beans turned out flavorful and slightly saucy (a good attribute in my opinion!) and complemented the rest of the meal very well.

Cuban-Style Black Beans  (view the original recipe here)

You will need…
1/2 Onion
2 cloves Garlic
2 Scallions
1/4 Red Pepper
3 tablespoons Cilantro
Olive Oil
1 15oz. can Black Beans, undrained
1/3 cup Water
1 Bay Leaf
few pinches of Cumin (I love how there’s no exact measurement in the original recipe… this is exactly how I cook!)
one pinch Oregano
1 teaspoon Red Wine Vinegar
Salt and Pepper, to taste

Directions:
Chop the onion, garlic, scallions, red pepper, and cilantro in a food processor.  Add a small amount of Olive Oil to a pan and sauté the onion mixture for approximately 3 minutes.  Add the rest of the ingredients and stir well.  Bring to a boil and then lower heat and simmer, uncovered, for approx. 15 minutes stirring occasionally.

Jicama Slaw

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Tonight for dinner we are making pork carnitas with jicama slaw, cuban-style beans, and cilantro-lime rice.  The pork, which has been simmering the crock pot all day, will not have a huge amount of seasoning which is OK because the real flavors will come from the combination of the slow-cooked pork and this delicious jicama slaw in our green chile corn tortillas.  I’ll post the pork recipe and photos of the finished dinner later.

We made the slaw this afternoon so that the veggies will have time to soak up the dressing before dinner.  The original recipe came from the Food Network’s Guy Fieri.  You can view Guy’s recipe here.

Jicama Slaw

You will need…
3 tablespoons Lime Juice
1/2 teaspoon Red Chile Flakes (we used Crushed Red Pepper since we didn’t have Chile Flakes)
1/2 teaspoon Chile Powder
6 tablespoons Rice Wine Vinegar
1 teaspoon Sugar
6 tablespoons Olive Oil
1 teaspoon Salt
1 teaspoon Pepper
1  1/2 cups Jicama, peeled and julienned
1 cup Carrots, peeled and julienned
1 cup English Cucumber, julienned
1/2 cup Red Pepper, julienned
1/2 cup Red Onion, thinly sliced
1 cup Shredded Cabbage (use bagged cole slaw mix if you don’t feel like buying a whole head of cabbage; for tonight’s dinner we used a bag of “broccoli cole slaw”)
2 tablespoons Cilantro, chopped

I was able to fit nearly all of the ingredients onto this cutting board... there are a lot of them!

Directions:
In a small bowl or measuring cup combine the first eight ingredients (lime juice through pepper) and stir together.

If you have a mandoline, use it to julienne and slice your veggies. We made this slaw one time before we owned our mandoline and it took about 40 minutes longer because I am not very quick with a knife!

In a much larger bowl, combine the rest of the ingredients (jicama through cilantro) and toss.  Pour the dressing over the veggies and mix well.  Cover and refrigerate for 1-2 hours before serving.

Cilantro-Lime Rice

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In this recipe, simply adding some cilantro and lime can transform a mundane frozen package of Trader Joe’s white rice into a fancy-tasting side dish.  Try this with Tequila Shrimp or substitute it in for normal rice in your favorite burrito recipe.

Cilantro-Lime Rice

You will need…
2-3 tablespoons of chopped Cilantro
2 tablespoons Lime Juice
Lime Zest from one small Lime
1 pouch of frozen Trader Joe’s White Rice

Directions:
Place the Cilantro, Lime Juice and Lime Zest in a serving bowl.  Cook the packet of rice according to the package instructions (for TJ’s white rice, microwave on HIGH for 3 minutes).  Add cooked rice to serving bowl and stir to combine.