To rice and beans and cheese

To confirm your suspicions, I admit that yes, the month of May has wiped the floor with my good blogging intentions.

Somewhere between finals, Final Friday, Memorial Day, two "part-time" jobs, graduations, birthdays, and road trips to exotic locales like Winfield and Kansas City, I lost grip of my cooking. My eating became nomadic and feral; I survived on oranges, iced coffee, brownies, quesadillas, and microwave curries from the Eastern food store.

I did cook a little this month, and by "little" I mean "a minuscule number of dishes." I baked polenta fries and sliced tomatoes for a Memorial Day cookout, baked boxed Ghirardelli brownies t.h.r.e.e times, and occasionally remembered to bring a salad of lettuce, almonds, and cranberries to work. But mostly, I flitted about between engagements, munching on Snickers Dark bars and drinking cold coffee.

By this Friday, I felt like I no longer knew how to cook, or what to cook, or whether I owned any recipes that worked. Whatever I cooked should be as simple to make as, say, a peanut butter sandwich, since in times of great duress, I've been known to screw up plain rice or hard-boiled eggs. After re-reading Molly's post on Cook Burn-Out and finding my mental happy place, I reached wayy back, parted the curtains of my mind, and found a dish I've been making since college.

Beans and rice.


"Beans and rice?" you say. "There are 5,393,471 ways to make beans and rice, and they are all superior to your method." That may be, but I still love my way of cooking beans and rice; it's evolved with me for at least eight years.

Back in the dorms, I had a 25% success rate of cooking kidney beans without welding most of them to the bottom of the saucepan. I used canned beans and I flavored the mess with packets of Taco Bell hot sauce. (Was my mother the only mother who hoarded fast food sauce packets?) Because I was "watching my figure," I wouldn't use more than a tablespoon of butter in the whole mess, yet I loved my beans and rice.

By 2005, when I was living briefly in Seattle, I got the hang of cooking rice on a stove top, to the relief of every pan I've used since then. Around that time, I ditched the Mexican hot sauce in favor of Sriracha chili sauce.

In 2007, I learned to salt the rice, and in 2008, I fell in love with avocados. Cheddar cheese migrated into the dish organically.

I don't know how the recipe will have evolved 20 years from now, but I do know it'll still be good comfort food.

Beans and rice and cheese

• 2 small handfulls (or about a cup and a half) of kidney, Anasazi, or pinto beans
• 1 cup long-grain brown rice
• 1/8-1/4 cup Sriracha hot sauce
• sea salt
• 1/2 an avocado
• 1/2 cup shredded cheddar or pepper jack cheese

Soak the beans overnight, covered, in a pan of cold water. The next day, drain the soaking water and cover the beans with 6-8 cups of fresh water. Bring the beans to a boil, then reduce the heat to a simmer. The beans will need to cook this way for about an hour.

Once the beans are simmering and covered, start the rice. Rinse the rice in cold water to wash away any dust or sand, then pour the rice and 2 1/2 cups of cold water in a sauce pan. Bring the rice to a roaring boil, and, without ever stirring it, reduce the heat to a simmer, just like the beans. Let the rice cook either covered or with the lid slightly askew for about 40 minutes, or until the last spoonful of water is almost absorbed into the rice. Toss a 1/4 to a 1/2 teaspoon of sea salt in the pan and fluff the rice with a fork.

By now, the beans should be about 10-15 minutes away from being tender and done. This is a great time to stir a few tablespoons of chili sauce into the bean broth. When the beans are done, spoon them into the rice pan using a slotted spoon. Don't worry about draining them completely; some drippiness is good. Add more chili sauce if you wish, then serve hot, with sliced avocados and cheddar cheese. This recipe makes three main dish or four side dish servings (unless you have seconds.)

With mountains of whipped cream

I've avoided writing a lengthy post about coffee since October, but I can hold out no more.

I love coffee, I am a coffee addict, and I am a coffee snob. It's only fair you know this about me. The affair began in 2001, with my first timid sips of a Spiced Latte (prepared by the incomparable Holly Higbee.) My devotion has yet to wane.

Most days begin with a mug of coffee with cream as I slide into the control room chair at my radio station. I thank heaven every day that my job, unlike so many office jobs, has good coffee for the office coffee maker. No Riffels Roast could prepare my vocal chords to say "committed to quality craftsmanship" without tripping at 5 am.

Drip coffee is my mainstay for time reasons, but I also enjoy a good latte -- hot or cold -- a café au lait (steamed milk and drip coffee), a chewy French press, percolated coffee, iced coffee, and, or course, espresso.

Espresso isn't something you can chug, like lemonade in July. It's a sipper, something you take in slowly, in layers, with only perhaps a piece of dark chocolate on the side to cut the intensity. In 99% of cafes, espresso is still served in its own special glass, with a petit saucer, because drinking espresso is meant to be an experience.

Espresso is tough stuff. It's the leather jacket-wearing, chain-smoking cousin of the café au lait, and it's too intense for people sometimes. That's why, when I'm feeling like a sissy, I like to soften espresso's edges with mountains of whipped cream.

My Francis! Francis! machine still turns out a good shot.

In italiano, it's called "caffè espresso con panna montata." En français, c'est "un café express avec de la crème fouettée." To me, it's simply espresso con panna. It's been winning the hearts and minds of the espresso newcomers for years.

A Flickr photo I enjoy, captioned
A"La Casa della Panna", dietro Fontana di Trevi.
Straconsigliato a chiunque ami un buon caffé con la panna.

A two-ingredient recipe for espresso con panna

• 2-3 tablespoons of fresh, oily, medium-bodied coffee, ground fine for espresso.
• 2-3 cups of spring water, or water with a low-medium mineral content.
  
• 1 can whipped cream or
• 1 cup heavy whipping cream + 1 oz vanilla or hazelnut syrup, whipped or aerated in one of these

Step 1: Make a shot of espresso, timed from 13-17 seconds, with a smooth body and a creamy, caramel froth/crema on top.

Step 2: Load the shot with heaps of whipped cream and eat your dessert with a spoon.

If you're in a position to make a shot of espresso at home, I'm assuming you own an espresso machine and know how already. If you don't and you just have a fancy coffee maker that also produces espresso, Coffee Geek has a great tutorial on how to make shots.

I like to use the Spice Merchant's espresso, San Fransisco, or Vienna roasts for my espresso; they produce roasty, carmely shots that don't have the Starbucks-y aftertaste of burned sugar.

Walk into the Spice Merchant sometime and tell an employee that you're just fascinated by this coffee stuff and you want to know whether they roast all of their beans right there. They will make you smell their 40+ roasts, all freshly roasted and sitting in giant buckets in the center of the store. If you run into Bob, the owner of the Spice Merchant, he will probably give you a tour of their store room, show you the green, unroasted beans, and tell you about each of the countries where they buy their coffee.

The Spice Merchant blends all of the coffees at the Donut Whole as well, and their espresso blend embodies every quality I enjoy in an espresso. You can find DW beans at the Whole on east Douglas.

Also semi-locally, Corsair Coffee offers a rainbow array of coffees that lend themselves to great espresso. Corsair used to have its HQ in south Wichita, but its owner, Noel, moved the operations back to Florida to be near family. You can still find Corsair coffees at Backwoods, Cafe Posto, and Cocoa Dolce, or online at www.corsaircoffee.com

In the Starbucks line of coffees, I prefer their Cafe Vienna roast for espresso instead of their espresso/burned sugar blend. Also, many of my barista friends enjoy the BUX's house and Mocha Sinani blend for espresso. You can have your friendly Starbucks barista grind the beans for you or, if you find your beans at the grocery store, you can grind your own. Grab measure a small quantity of whole beans, set the grind to "fine" or "espresso," and grind only enough espresso to get you through two weeks.

If you want to go nuts, you could always buy green beans at the Spice Merchant or The Daily Grind and and then roast them at home, in a popcorn maker.

When my espresso begins to go awry, I notice its normally rich scent has flattened out and that increased moisture makes the coffee clump together. Then, I dump the old espresso into a coffee filter, brew a pot of joe, and throw the grounds into the compost heap. Plants love spent grounds. Instead of drinking the brew, I use it in cake or brownie recipes that call for espresso or "strong coffee."

While you enjoy your espresso con panna, please enjoy this video.

* Espresso also sets your circulatory and nervous systems into overdrive. In general, one shot contains the punch of two cups of coffee. After a hallucinogenic experience in a "shot-drinking contest" during my Starbucks days (8 shots! too much!) I've become more careful about my espresso intake, saving the shot for dire times or even switching to a good decaf.