What follows is not a very exciting recipe, but it was either get around to making a post, even if it’s boring, or wait around waiting for an exciting one and since it’s been a week, I figured I’d better make a post or you’d all forget about me. My life became very, very hectic last week, culminating in a business trip to Austin earlier this week, hence my internet silence. Today’s been the first day I’ve had to really do any cooking. I made use of some more of my dried beans. So here you go. It’s basically from Simply Heavenly!, again.

Mexican Beans

1 1/2 cups dried pinto beans, soaked (either overnight in cold water, or in hot water for one hour, after boiling for one minute)
1 onion, diced
4 cloves garlic, minced or pressed
1/2 bell pepper, diced
1 package soy chorizo
1 can diced tomatoes
1 tsp salt
1 tsp oregano
1/2 tsp cumin
1/2 tsp black pepper

After soaking, drain the beans.

Cook the beans, either in a pressure cooker for 4 to 6 minutes or in a pot for however long it takes for them to get soft (an hour, maybe?).

Meanwhile, dice the onion and bell pepper, mince or press the garlic, and remove the soy chorizo from its casing.

After the beans have cooked, drain them. Heat some oil in a large pot (using the bean cooking pot cuts down on dishes), then add the onions, garlic, bell pepper, and soy chorizo and saute for 10 minutes.

Add the spices and tomatoes and cook for a minute.

Add enough water, about 1/2 cup, to make it a little soupy so it doesn’t dry out while cooking.

Bring to a boil, cover, reduce heat, and cook for an hour. I removed the lid after half an hour so it would thicken up.

Serve over rice or pasta.

I also made split pea soup.

In other food news, we had our annual company potluck Thanksgiving today at work and I’d like to announce how great it is to work for an Indian-American-owned company. Many of the employees of my company, including the owner, are Hindu and vegetarian, and at our potlucks the vegetarian dishes vastly outnumber the meat dishes. In fact, I only saw three meat dishes out of about 30 today, and they were segregated away from the veggie dishes. How awesome is that?!