Baja Fresh dinner at Home and vegetable broth recipe!

One of our favorite meals is to do "Baja Fresh" beans and rice at home. So this isn't a new recipe for us, but it is one that we all like. I soaked pinto beans over the weekend and cooked them for four hours on Monday then froze them. Pulled out the frozen beans this morning and fried them up for dinner tonight.

Basic Beans
2 cups beans (black, pinto, kidney, white, etc.)
warm water
2 Tbs. whey or lemon juice
4 cloves garlic, mashed
salt and pepper

cover beans with warm water. Stir in whey or lemon juice and leave for 12-24 hours. Drain, rinse, and place in a large pot (or in the crock pot:) and add water to cover beans. Bring to a boil and skim off foam. Reduce heat and add garlic. Simmer for 4-8 hours (when using the crock pot I will put the beans in in the morning and let them cook for 10 hours). Add more water as necessary. Season to taste.

Refried Beans (Note: we do use oil during the fast for cooking)
4 cups basic beans (see above)- i've done this with black beans or pinto beans
3/4 cup oil (the Nourishing Traditions book says lard or duck fat but, hey, this is lenten:)

mash beans. melt lard (or pour oil into pan). add beans and cook, stirring constantly. I always add salt and pepper at the end. after eating these I will never buy refried beans in a can. These are so much more flavorful (and we never eat refried beans with lard or duck fat because this is one of our lenten dishes).

We eat this with Rice...
Soaked Brown Rice
2 cups brown rice
4 cups warm water
4 Tbs. whey or lemon juice
1 tsp. sea salt
2-4 Tbs. butter (we do use Earth Balance margarine)

Place rice, warm water, and 4 Tbs. whey or lemon juice in a pot. Let sit for 7 hours (I just let it sit from sometime in the morning until an hour before dinner time). Bring to boil (after sitting- not you, the rice), skim, reduce heat, stir in salt and butter, cover tightly and let cook approx. 45 minutes. I bet you could use some vegetable broth in place of part of the water (although it's really good rice without using veggie broth).

We serve the beans and rice with sliced tomatoes, salsa, guacamole, jalapeno peppers (DH likes the peppers- I don't), and corn tortillas.

Veggie Broth
12 cups water
a couple of onions coarsely chopped
a couple of carrots coarsely chopped
a couple stalks of celery coarsely chopped
some cloves of garlic peeled
any other veggies you might have on hand
salt and pepper

I put all of this in my crock pot and cook on the lowest setting for a long time (anywhere from 10-20 hours). strain it through flour sackcloth and store in the freezer.