Latin Black Beans and Brown Rice Confetti

I was looking for a side dish to have one night with a my Latin Grilled Chicken recipe.  I looked in the fridge and the pantry to see what I had and the below was the result.  My thought is cumin is the most fabulous spice EVER made!  I love it in everything Latin flavored that I make.  If you start with Cumin, Olive Oil and Garlic – you can't go wrong.

This is so good you can use it as a side, as a main dish with some cheese on it, as a filling for a burrito – LOVE this stuff and I hope you will too.

Black Bean and Brown Rice Confetti

2C cooked brown rice

1 can of fire roasted diced tomatoes (with onions and peppers) – drained

1 can of black beans – drained and rinsed

½ T cumin

1/4t garlic powder

1/4t onion powder

salt & pepper

Combine all ingredients in a casserole dish and toss together until well mixed.  Then put under the broiler in the oven for about 5 minutes.  Then stir and fluff and put back under the broiler for another 5minutes.  Keep doing this for until a lot of the moisture is dried up.  Serve next to chicken or any other latin dish.

I LOVE THIS STUFF!  It is way better than the frozen entree versions and way healthier.  Another Clean Eating recipe, just be sure to read your labels to make sure it's "Clean Eating friendly" if that's what you're doing, that can be a side or a great lunch.

Singing for my dinner....

Well, I named this blog The Singing Tomato because I sing and cook.  Both passions go back to my Grandma Rosaria - they called her Sue for short...I am not sure why but it is what it is.  I remember she would stand in the kitchen and cook and sing.  Every Sunday, much like this Sunday, when I make "the gravy" or a bolognese because we are running low in the freezer I am reminded of those days.  I used to think she looked just like Snow White from the Disney movie and sang like her too.

Anyway - since this is the Singing Tomato I guess it's about time I get my voice out there... again.  Well, it's been about 8 years since I have recorded anything.  I will go out and stand in with a friends' band for a song here and there but haven't really gotten back into it for a while - other than teaching my voice students - which I LOVE!  But I guess this is my turn.

It has taken me almost 40yrs to find "my voice".  What it is that I love to sing.   I started in the theatre - then I heard Whitney Houston, God rest her soul.  I knew then that what the kind of music I wanted to sing but there are so many genres...I love R&B and rock - fronted a cover band singing that and it was fun.   But as luck and time would have it - I also love pasta and between that and my slowing metabolism - I got where I knew rock stardom was not in my cards.  So I thought if I didn't care what was marketable - what would I choose to sing.... I figured out I love jazz standards, theatre and "big song and dance numbers."  Like Bette Midler in For the Boys, I love big Diva like songs and I don't care who knows it!

So for my inaugural Singing Tomato number, for your listening pleasure (or your excruciating swimmer's ear like pain -  LOL!) I chose a funny abbreviated number from the show City of Angels.  I love this show because of not only its story line but it's effects.  The story line is about a playwright in the 1960s who has writers block while writing a play about the 1940s film noir type detective an a musical around that and how he gets through his writer's block.  The cool thing is the whole show is done with one side of the stage in color, the side which is the writer trying to write is in color and the other side is what he is writing on paper, it is lit in black and white.  Very fun.  This Song is called You Can Count on Me.  Its sung by both the writer's and the detective's assistant because although she is a nice girl she really can't find the right guy - and she seems to have a crush on the writer/detective but she knows that probably won't work out either.  She is saying you can count on me...to screw up my love life no matter how I try.  I love this and I hope you do too.  Sorry about the production - I cook and sing - I don't do audio engineering.  :)