What We Ate Wednesday--Mexican Bowl

Hello lovelies! I am jumping on the bandwagon of eating stuff in bowls. Not just any bowls, but those nice wide flat bowls where all your food can be side by side and not piled on top of itself, if you know what I mean.

We recently invested in some nice bowls for meals such as this. I thought I would do a Mexican one as my inaugural meal. This was really easy to make...you could add any extras you fancied like guacamole (I can't do this due to my avocado allergy, but for the rest of you go on) or some salad greens with chopped tomatoes.

Mexican was a good choice as it tasted delicious and it looked really pretty all laid out side by side.

This meal has Spanish rice, spicy black beans, sweetcorn with red pepper and lime and cucumber. I just used half a cucumber and fed the rest to the Bronte Snails.

Mexican Bowl
For the Spanish rice:
1 TB red wine vinegar
2 TB tamari or soy sauce
1 tsp garlic powder
1 tsp onion powder
1 tsp smoked paprika
1 tsp ground cumin
1 tsp oregano
3 TB tomato puree
water
1 cup easy cook brown rice
 Add your vinegar and soy sauce to a one cup measuring cup and then top up until you have a full cup and add it to your rice pot. Then fill up another cup of water (to make a total of 2 cups liquid) and add that to your rice pot. Add the spices and tomato puree and whisk until the puree is broken up and dissolved. Bring your liquid to the boil then add your brown rice and turn down the heat and let it simmer until all the liquid is absorbed. It will take slightly longer than standard rice as the tomato puree makes the liquid thick. But it will be worth it.

Meanwhile make the black beans:
1 onion, sliced into rainbows
garlic
tin of black beans, drained and rinsed
1 TB taco seasoning of your choice (mine is a pre-made mix i buy at Tesco)
juice of half a lemon
Cook your onion in 1/4 cup water or vegetable stock until softened then add your garlic. Add in your beans and spices and lemon juice and cook a few more minutes until heated through. If the rice is still not quite there yet, take it off the heat and then warm it back up again when rice is done.

Side dishes:
1 cup frozen sweetcorn
half a red pepper, diced
1 TB lime juice

cucumber

Defrost your frozen corn in boiling water for 5 minutes. Drain and add the red pepper and the lime juice. Slice the cucumber into rounds.

Serve all together in a lovely wide bowl if you have one and marvel at how pretty everything looks and then scoff the lot.