A quick and simple recipe. If you have some left-over rice in the fridge it will be even quicker and simpler...
I usually make twice as much rice as I need when I'm feeding just Sveta and I. I think rice cooks better when you cook a lot rather than a little. It seems to me it's less likely to burn, or over or under cook. Of course, this might just be because of the way I do things, but the fact is, I regularly have a couple of portions of rice in a tub in the fridge and it comes in really handy for knocking together a quick lunch. And this is the kind of recipe I use on such occasions.
As you can imagine, when using left-overs, you can't be too fussy about measuring ingredients, so you need a recipe which is a robust one which can be adapted to the prevailing conditions. Actually, most of the recipes in my cookbook are of such kind, but what's nice about this particular recipe is the inclusion of an avocado. It goes beautifully with the rice and beans.
Ingredients
1 mug (or about one and a half cups) of rice and 1.6 times the volume of water (or a pile of left-over cooked rice)
200-250g of cooked red kidney beans
1 clove of garlic
A couple of pinches of cumin seeds
A sprig or two of fresh basil
1 or 2 tomatoes
Olive oil
Salt
Steam the rice first, if that has not already been taken care of.
Heat some oil ion a pan and fry the chopped garlic and cumin seeds for a minute. Just let the garlic turn a little golden at the edges - not too much. Add the drained and rinsed beans and stir until they are heated through then add the rice and stir until it is starting to make popping sounds and stick to the pan. Turn the heat down a little and set about the rest of the ingredients.
Prepare the avocado by first making six vertical cuts through to the stone, then peeling off the skin in strips. The avocado should then come apart into wedges with a little bit of encouragement.
Cut the tomato into quarters and discard the seeds then chop both the tomato and avocado and gently stir into the pan with a little salt. Just allow the tomato and avocado to heat through and that's the dish ready. Add some chopped fresh basil leaves and serve.