pinto beans with rice and veggies

A lot of times I really do just throw together recipes on the fly.  This was thrown together, and actually tastes good.


ingredients:
pinto beans - 2 cups
minute brown rice - not cooked
yellow pepper - diced
red pepper - diced
broccoli - two small crowns, cut into bite sized pieces
mushrooms - one container, which is 8 oz I think, cut into bit sized pieces
chicken bouillon - optional
soy sauce - optional

** Regarding the pinto beans, I actually made an entire bag of dried beans weeks ago and froze them.  I prepared the entire bag of beans as the bag indicated.  Once the beans were cooked and cooled, I divided the beans into 2 cup servings, with the water included, in sandwich baggies. I froze all the bags.


In a large pan, saute a red and yellow pepper.  To that, add the mushrooms until they start to get tender.  To that, add the broccoli.  Once all those ingredients cook up, add the frozen bag of beans.  Cover.

After a good couple minutes, check on the beans.  They should start to thaw out, and the liquid should start to incorporate into the dish.  If you want to add chicken bouillon to the liquid at this point, do it.

Once the beans are fully thawed out, simply add as much rice as needed to absorb any liquid.  After about 10 minutes, the rice will be fully cooked and there shouldn't be much liquid in the pan.

Add soy sauce to taste.  Done!


*****

Ok, so maybe this meal isn't prepared in just a couple minutes since the beans have to thaw out and the rice has to cook.  Although there is about 20 minutes of cook time, the time you are at the stove is minimal.

Interesting facts about the ingredients in this dish:
- pinto beans have a good amount of magnesium. When you body has a healthy amount of this stuff, your veins and arteries relax which means that everything (nutrients, blood, oxygen) flows better.

- check out this link about soy sauce...it isn't as bad as you think it is!