I know everyone has spent all their time thinking about what to make for holiday meals, but I’m still eating dinner every day.  Having the resources to nourish ourselves is reason enough to celebrate with something tasty.  It’s New Year’s day but I’m celebrating something else: It’s a good day to be hungry.  Here’s what’s on the menu.

Black beans with bacon and grapefruit:  Simple and striking.  The grapefruit becomes subliminal in this dish.  Exotic, floral, with just enough bitterness and acidity to let you eat the whole pot without knowing why.  With bacon the dish becomes luxurious.

Arroz verde: the traditional soak and pan-fry method for Mexican rice, enhanced with spinach and cilantro.

Plantains: squishy ripe, sauteed in butter.

black beans with bacon and grapefruit, arroz verde, sweet plantains

The best way to make sure the plantains are ripe is not by color alone, but by squeezing them gently.  They should feel like a ripe peach.  If not, let them sit out on the counter for a few days, or alternately if you started to peel them and found it difficult to do so, slice thinly and fry in plenty of oil over medium high heat until reddish brown, remove to a paper towel and salt for a savory addition to the meal.

for the beans:
6 oz. bacon, diced
2 cups dried black beans
5 cloves garlic, peeled
salt, to taste
1/2 grapefruit, juiced

for the rice:
2 cups rice (brown or white)
1/2 medium onion, roughly chopped
3 cloves garlic
6 sprigs of cilantro, stems included
2 oz fresh spinach (about 3 good handfuls)
1/3 cup oil (high heat)
3 to 3 1/2 cups vegetable or chicken broth, well salted

for the plantains:
2 ripe plantains (yellow and black, and soft to the touch), peeled and thickly sliced
1-2 tablespoons butter

black beans with bacon and grapefruit:
In a heavy 2 quart pot fry the bacon until crisp.  Remove to a plate, and pour out most of the bacon grease, but reserve 1-2 tablespoons in the pot.  Add the beans and garlic to the pot, along with 6 cups of water, and bring to a boil.  Reduce to a simmer, and allow to cook over low heat until almost tender.  This could take 1-3 hours depending on the freshness of the beans.  (In the meantime, start the rice.)  When almost tender add salt to taste.  Continue cooking until beans are soft and tasty .  Add the bacon back to the pan, as well as the juice from the grapefruit.

arroz verde:
If using brown rice, bring a pot of water to a boil, add the rice and cook over high heat for 11 minutes.  If using white rice, soak the rice in hot water for 5 minutes. Drain.

In a blender, add the chopped onion, garlic, cilantro and spinach, along with just enough water to puree.  Blend until completely smooth.

In a large saute pan, heat the oil over medium high heat.  Shake the rice to remove as much water as possible.  Add the rice, and turn the heat up as high as you can tolerate.  Stirring constantly, fry the rice until it picks up a light color.  If there are any pools of oil left in the pan, tip to one side and pour out, or use a paper towel to blot.

Return to the heat and add the puree, continuing to stir until the rice is almost dry again.  Add 3 cups of broth, turn down the heat to low and simmer until rice is cooked, adding an extra 1/2 cup of broth if needed.

sweet plantains:
Melt the butter in a saute pan over medium to medium high heat.  Add the plantain slices and cook until soft and nicely browned.

Inexplicably delicious and blissfully simple.  It can’t get any better than that.  Oh, wait: my kids were fighting over bites from my bowl the next day.

This is a great basic recipe -perfect on it’s own, but it is also great for improvising if you’re into that.  You could go very Latino with this dish, adding cilantro stems or epazote to the beans while they cook, frying chopped tomato with the onions for the tiganissi, or topping the dish with avocado.  Or you could use black-eyed peas and chard and flavor it with lemon (skip the honey), as in my original inspiration for this dish (Cypriot Black-eyed Peas and Swiss Chard from World Vegetarian by Madhur Jaffrey.)  The basic formula is cooked beans and greens with a splash of something sour, topped with fried onions and garlic in oil.

black beans and kale with tiganissi

Tiganissi is a type of garnish I’ve found in recipes from Cyprus, in which onions and other vegetables are quickly fried in plenty of oil and poured over a dish, resulting in unbelievable amounts of flavor.

for the beans and kale:
1 1/4 cup black beans, uncooked
1 bunch kale, stems removed, leaves chopped into small pieces
salt, to taste
1/4 cup lime juice, or to taste
small spoonful honey (or agave for vegans)

for the tiganissi:
1/4 cup olive oil
pinch of red pepper flakes or 1 jalapeno, minced
1 medium onion, finely diced
3 cloves of garlic, minced

cooked rice, to serve

Put the beans in a large heavy pot, cover with several inches of water and bring to a boil. Reduce the heat and simmer until the beans are almost cooked through, about 2 hours, but start checking sooner.  Add the kale and salt, to taste. Simmer until both the beans and kale are tender. Add the lime juice and honey to taste, as well as more salt if needed.

Heat the oil for the tiganissi in a medium frying pan over fairly high heat. Add the red pepper flakes or jalapeno, and stir for about 5 seconds. Add the onion and garlic. The temperature of the oil is important. You want the onions to turn brown around the edges. If the temperature is too cool, the onions will caramelize evenly, which is not what you want for this dish. The cooking should not take very long. Pour the tiganissi over the beans, and serve mixed with rice.

Around the world, there is a great divide between local restaurant cuisine and local home cooking.  And maybe I’m biased because I’ve never been able to afford three star Michelin restaurants, but I’m a home-cooking girl.  Sure there are great affordable restaurants everywhere, but they have their limits.  At the end of every day, wherever I am, I really just want a home-cooked meal.  If I can’t have it, I’ll settle for a plate at a restaurant with varying degrees of satisfaction.

So if I tell you that I didn’t fall in love with Spanish food after living in Spain 6 months maybe you can forgive me, because I never got a home-cooked Spanish meal.  I had some unforgettable fare, to be sure: my first Spanish tortilla, fried eggplant, tapas at a crowded bar, bocadillos with jamón Serrano or chorizo and churros with thick hot chocolate.  But honestly, the best Spanish food I’ve had has come from my kitchen these past couple of weeks.  Mostly because of Penelope Casas’ extraordinary book La Cocina de Mamá: The Great Home Cooking of Spain.  I’ve already remade every recipe I’ve tried, and can’t get enough.

So here’s a paella recipe from the book, like nothing I tried while in Spain.  My adaptations of using a short-grain brown rice instead of white Bomba rice and a cast-iron pan instead of a traditional paella pan make it slightly less authentic, but it’s everyday home cooking and it’s delicious.

Isabel’s vegetable paella

adapted from La Cocina de Mamá: The Great Home Cooking of Spain by Penelope Casas

I honestly prefer brown rice here, just be sure to use a short-grain variety.  And a quick tip that I’ve used here: to substitute brown rice for white rice, bring a generous pot of water to a boil, add brown rice and cook for 10 minutes, then drain.  Use as directed for white rice in nearly any recipe.

2 carrots
2 small celery stalks, or the heart with leaves
1/2 medium onion
4 oz. shitake mushrooms cleaned, stems only (reserve caps for the paella)
1 clove of garlic
4 cups water
1/8 teaspoon saffron
salt, to taste

Roughly chop the vegetables, and put in a saucepan with the water.  Bring to a simmer, cover and cook 20-30 minutes.  Remove the vegetables and discard.  Add salt to taste.  Add the saffron, cover and turn the heat down very low, or off completely.

1 1/4 cup short-grain brown rice
1/3 cup olive oil
1 cup frozen lima beans, thawed
1 medium carrot (3 oz.) scrubbed and chopped into 1/2 inch pieces
reserved shitake mushroom caps, chopped into 1/2 inch pieces
1/4 lb. green beens, chopped into 1/2 inch pieces (about 35 beans or 1 heaping cup chopped)
2 red bell peppers, chopped into 1/2 inch pieces
6 oz. zuchhini, choppeed into 1/2 inch cubes (1 1/3 cup)
2 garlic cloves, minced
1/2 cup chopped whole canned plum tomatoes
1 teaspoon pimentón de la Vera- sweet smoked Spanish paprika

In a large saucepan, bring a generous amount of water to a boil. Add the rice and cook, continuing to boil for 10 minutes.  Remove any scum that comes to the top. Drain. Let continue to drain in a colander until ready to use.

Preheat the oven to 400 (gas) or 450 (electric).  Heat the oil in a large 12-14 inch cast iron pan over fairly high heat (just one less than the highest setting).  Add all the vegetables except the garlic and tomato.  Cook for about 10 minutes, stirring regularly until the vegetables pick up some nice color and are crisp-tender.  Add the garlic and cook 2 minutes more, still stirring.  Add the tomato and paprika, and continue cooking for a minute more.  Taste for salt.

Add 3 cups of the broth and the rice, reduce the heat and simmer about 10 minutes, until the rice is getting relatively soft.  If needed, add the remaining broth.  There should be enough to finish cooking the rice.

Transfer to the oven, and cook about 10(gas) to 15(electric) minutes more, until nearly al dente.  Remove from the oven, cover with foil and let sit 5-10 minutes until the rice is cooked.  Return the pan to the stovetop and cook undisturbed over high heat for about 3 minutes until a crust (the socarrat) has formed on the bottom .