Meatless Monday Link-Up - Spicy Black Beans with Peppers and Rice

 My first Link- Up! Please participate and be sure to tell your other food blog friends!

Anyone out there want to commit to Meatless Mondays with me? For those of you who don’t know, the Meatless Monday campaign was launched in 2003 in association with the John Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health and now there are 23 countries participating! Wow!

Paul McCartney introduced ‘Meat-Free Mondays’ to the United Kingdom and there are tons of other famous people on board…. you know, Oprah and so on. But we don’t have to worry about all the celebrities, let’s just commit to getting at least a tiny bit of meat out of our diets. The health benefits are indisputable and surprisingly, the effect on the environment is pretty profound also. (For example, it takes 2,500 gallons of water to produce a single pound of meat…. That’s CRAZY WASTEFUL!!!!)

Never eaten vegetarian meals before? Not sure where to begin? Well, look through the vegetarian and vegan recipes right here on my blog to start and then surf over to the Meatless Monday website which is loaded with irresistible recipes.

The best way to start a meatless meal is by embracing – and I mean EMBRACING -- the humble bean. :) 

Here’s what you need:

1 T vegetable oil

1 large onion, diced

1 C chopped green pepper

1 C chopped red pepper

3 large cloves of garlic, minced

1 T ground cumin

1 jalapeno pepper, seed and veins removed, diced

1 t dried oregano

2 x 15 ounce cans of black beans, drained and rinsed

2 C cans crushed tomatoes with added puree

¼ C orange juice

1 ½ t hot sauce (Tabasco)

1 1/3 C raw rice, cooked

(My beans were frozen and it looks like one of my peppers was orange)

Here’s what you do:

Heat the oil in a heavy bottom skillet. Add onion, green pepper, red pepper, garlic, cumin, jalapeno and oregano. Sauté veggies  until soft but not too brown. Mash about ½ cup of the beans and add them to the veggies. Also add the remaining beans, tomatoes, orange juice and hot sauce. Simmer for about 15 minutes or until the consistency is to your liking. Serve over white rice with lime, cilantro, sour cream, avocado, shredded cheddar, etc….. 

(printable recipe)