Black Rice - recipe

First of all I have to say, it makes me really self conscious to blog about food and recipes, I feel like from a crazy sex maniac with a fondness for drinking and life of excitement and adventures, I turned to some housewife who only write about crafts and food. I'm trying to remind myself that I can be both at the same time, also, right now, our eating habits do get a lot of attention, being that Ned had to do an extreme dietary change and we are both pretty committed to that, even though it's really hard!

Saying that, we did both have dessert tonight, Sunday is Cake night, in which Ned's allowed to have any crazy dessert he wants, which always means death by chocolate vegan cake with 2 scoops of Vanilla ice cream in Blackbird parlor.

Before we had that, we had a healthy meal in the studio. I don't like cooking meat or chicken, so I try to include a lot of beans and lentils in the food I make so we get enough proteins.

Ingredients

1 cup black rice (also called forbidden rice sometimes)
1/2 French lentils (they are small and dark green)
1 chilly pepper
1/2 no salt tomato sauce
1 small potato
about 8-15 baby carrots

In a pan, heat the rice and lentils until they are warm to the touch. dice the potato and carrots and add to the heating rice (I used to lightly fry all those with some olive oil, but now I do the same without the oil, it's more healthy, only you got to mind it doesn't burn more) chop the chilly to small bits and add that to.

mix the tomato sauce in 3 cups of water and after the rice and other ingredient are really warm, pour into the pan. when the mixture is simmering, lower the flames and cover the pot. Let cook for about 40 minutes on a lower flame. It's ready when all the water are soaked in the rice (you can also taste to see if it's cooked through).

Turn the flame off pick up the lead and place a clean cloth or towel on top of the pan, then close the lead again, leave for 5-10 minutes to soak the leftover fluids.

I garnished it with home made tomato salsa and some canned artichoke hearts, but any vegetable would look beautiful on this.

Some rice tips: If this is the first time you are making rice, know that rice tend to be tricky, it take a couple of times to get to know how much water to add exactly and how much time to cook. Over all, it's better to put to little water and add some more if all the water in the pan are gone and the rice is still hard then to put to much water and end up with a sticky sort of gruel.

Good luck!