Hearty Beans and Rice

School started Monday and I am teaching while twenty-three weeks pregnant with twins, which is a sentence I keep saying to myself because it remains slightly unbelievable as a sentence about my own life. The first week is always about names and routines and the specific calibration of figuring out who each child is and what they need, and this first week I have been doing that while also doing the other calibration, which is figuring out how to be fully present as a teacher while also being a container for two small people who are apparently very active at the times when I most need to stand still.

I have new students this year and returning students, and the returning student dynamic is always interesting: these are kids who know me, who know the classroom, who are the veterans in a room of newcomers. They help calibrate the room. They know how things work here. I told them at the beginning of the year that I might have a substitute for some of the spring and they received this information with the seriousness of small people who understand that routines are important and teachers are human and both things can be true.

Slow cooker season is back. I put the chicken and rice on Sunday night and it was ready when I got home Monday at 4:30. I stood at the counter and ate it directly from the pot and felt human again for the first time since 7:15 AM. Ryan came home at 6 and ate the rest and said it was the best dinner he had had all week and I said I made it on Sunday and he said still the best dinner this week and I said I will take it.

August almost done. The babies are both moving all the time now, which Ryan finds absolutely riveting and which I find absolutely uncomfortable at 3 AM. Both of those things are true. Both of those things are also, I think, going to be true for the next eighteen years.

The chicken and rice I mentioned above was one version of what has become my entire September strategy: something that goes into the slow cooker on a Sunday and feeds us until it’s gone. This hearty beans and rice is the other version—cheaper, just as filling, and honestly the one I reach for when I’m too tired to even think about seasoning meat. It’s the kind of dinner that doesn’t need you to be present for it, which is good, because right now my presence is fully spoken for by approximately thirty-four small people, two of whom are inside my body.

Prep Time: 10 minutes | Cook Time: 6 hours (slow cooker) or 45 minutes (stovetop) | Total Time: 6 hours 10 minutes | Servings: 6

Ingredients

1 tablespoon olive oil
1 medium yellow onion, diced
3 cloves garlic, minced
1 green bell pepper, diced
2 stalks celery, diced
2 cans (15 oz each) red kidney beans, drained and rinsed
1 can (15 oz) black beans, drained and rinsed
1 can (14.5 oz) diced tomatoes, undrained
3 cups vegetable broth
1 1/2 cups long-grain white rice, uncooked
2 teaspoons cumin
1 teaspoon smoked paprika
1/2 teaspoon chili powder
1/2 teaspoon dried oregano
1 bay leaf
Salt and pepper to taste
Hot sauce for serving (optional)

Instructions

Sauté the aromatics. Heat olive oil in a skillet over medium heat. Cook the onion, bell pepper, celery, and garlic until softened, about 5 minutes.
Combine in the slow cooker. Transfer the sautéed vegetables to the slow cooker. Add kidney beans, black beans, diced tomatoes, vegetable broth, cumin, smoked paprika, chili powder, oregano, and bay leaf. Stir to combine.
Cook low and slow. Cover and cook on low for 5 to 6 hours or on high for 2 1/2 to 3 hours.
Add the rice. During the last 45 minutes of cooking, stir in the uncooked rice. Cover and continue cooking until the rice is tender and has absorbed the liquid.
Season and serve. Remove the bay leaf. Season with salt, pepper, and hot sauce to taste. Serve directly from the pot—no judgment here.

Nutrition (per serving)

Hearty Beans and Rice — The Slow Cooker Dinner That Got Me Through Week One