Black Beans, White Rice.

I made good on my previous post's promise. I have made black bean and white rice soup without using a recipe, save that I refereced a few ingredients off of the uncle ben's recipe. Taste-wise, it turned out great. The combination of spices I added really helped you forget you were eating something with absolutely no meat. But anyways, here is my recipe I have just developed for a very cheap and simple, meatless, hearty soup.

Zip's Black Bean and Rice Soup
1 cup dried black beans
1 cup dry white rice
2 tablespoons salt
2 cubes chicken bullion
1 tablespoon oregano
1 tablespoon cilantro (dry or fresh)
2 tablespoons minced garlic
1/2 onion

First, rinse black beans well, they come from the ground so they sometimes still have dirt on them. Using at least a 2 quart pot, add 8 cups of water, black beans and white rice. Bring mixture to a rapid boil. Maintain for 8-10 minutes, stirring frequently and uncovered. After this, bring the soup to a gentle boil uncovered, this will cook for around 40 minutes, stir occasionally. You should add all the other ingredients ten minutes into this process, including the bullion, salt, oregano, cilantro, garlic and onion. The onion should be very finely chopped. Then, as before, allow the mixture to cook for the remaining 30 mins. Test the bean's texture for softness at the end of the 30 minutes, if they are still tough, add a cup of hot water and continue heating, but cover the pot, continue stirring and checking until desired texture.

Well, thats exactly how I made it this time, the cooking time may be cut down by soaking the black beans overnite in water because I found myself cooking the mixture for a long time specifically due to the beans' toughness. The rice held up very well, and in the end, though it was very soft and squishy, it seemed to fit the bill for a soupy dish. Like I said before, this is a very inexpensive dish, and I'll bet the amount that I made could feed 4-5 people, just with a cup of rice and beans.