A new recipe from my kitchen - Creamy Rice&Beans

Inspired by those burritos-as-big-as-your-head at Chipotle, I pulled together this dish to go with grilled chicken for a meal a few weeks ago. I always feel guilty for consuming those buggers, but this side dish gives me what I crave and I can just have a small 1/2 cup serving with a more respectable piece of lean grilled chicken and a nice green salad. I also have this recipe posted on Grouprecipes.com

• 1/2 cup white jasmine rice (uncooked)


• 3/4 cup chicken stock (or broth)


• 2 cloves of garlic - peeled and smashed


• Fresh Juice of 1 lime


• 1 can black beans - rinsed and drained


• 1/4 cup low fat sour cream


• 1/4 cup shredded mexican-blend cheese


• 1/4 cup fresh chopped cilantro


• 1/2 tsp Chile Powder


• Salt to taste

1. Stir together rice, stock and garlic in medium saucepan


2. Heat on medium-high heat to boiling


3. Stir once, cover and reduce heat to low


4. Simmer rice on low heat for 20 minutes or until liquid is almost absorbed


5. Add lime juice to rice


6. Re-cover rice and continue to simmer for 2 additional minutes


7. Lightly fluff rice with fork and stir in black beans - re-cover and heat additional 3 minutes or until beans are heated


8. Remove rice from heat


9. Stir in sour cream, cheese, cilantro and chile powder until well blended


10. Add Salt to taste


11. Serve immediately!

Creamy Rice And Beans @ Group Recipes

Social networking for Foodies - Grouprecipes.com

As if there weren't already enough social networking sites out there, a new site has popped up that I had to try out, despite already having a MySpace site & profile that I sorely neglect. This new site, Grouprecipes.com is focused on connecting foodies to each other. The site is heavy on the web 2.0 stuff (tags, stumbles, groups, etc) but they do allow folks to upload their own recipes and swap info in a free-form fashion with each other as well as form sub groups around specific food topics. I've already set up a basic profile as well as joined the Southern Cooking and the Mexican groups. I haven't submitted any recipes yet, but have already started tagging and saving a few new things I'd like to try. I've also started feeding some of my favorite restaurants into the site with my personal reviews. Seems to still have a relatively low user base, but I'm curious to see if it takes off once the site is out of beta.