Rice n Beans

Diri ak pwa.  Rice and beans.  Our meal several times a week and oh so good.  The combination of rice and beans is probably the most traditional Haitian meal, provides a complete protein, and can fill a stomach fairly economically.  There are several traditional ways to prepare it, starting with the basic rice and bean, and building off of that.  Different kinds of rice, beans, veggies, meat, and spices create our favorite Haitian dish.  Bon appetit!

 This is our favorite...rice with black beans, with an oil and vegetable sauce to go over the top.  And fried chicken.  Yummmm.

 Diri djondjon (mushroom rice).  This has mushrooms and a bean called pwa tchous.  It also has cooked cabbage and carrots.  This time a little sausage was added.

 Rice with bean sauce.  This is made with black beans, but it's kind of like a refried bean sauce.  It's good for a change of pace.  Other items on the plate are abriko, pineapple, and pikliz (a pickled cabbage salad) to put on the fried plantains or bananas.

 Diri jadenye (gardener's rice).  This is pretty much like diri djondjon, also with veggies, and traditionally has a green bean called pwa kongo that is similar to a pea.  It also is served with the oil/onion/green pepper sauce.  This day we had fried chicken and labapen, a nut that falls from one of the trees in our yard.

A good meal right here.  Our normal rice and beans,  fried chicken, homemade potato chips, cabbage salad, avocados.  Many thanks to our dear cook, Madam Ino, for all the hard work making wonderful meals when we otherwise would have had mac and cheese :)

Back in the States, our Saturday noon tradition was to pop a frozen pizza in the oven and enjoy.  Here in our present situation....can you hear me laughing??  So we found our new tradition right outside the hospital gates.  Yes, we buy food off the street, or sometimes we even get rice and beans delivery to our door.  It is a highlight of our Saturday...diri kole with pwa wouj (sticky rice with red beans).

We have just one week left of eating our Haitian food before we hit the border and enter the land of American food.  We're really excited to seeing everyone, and we have our bucket list of food we want to eat on our TWO month furlough!!

While everyone has their own little twist on how they make their rice and beans, here is one "recipe" for anyone adventurous enough to try it out.  Or visit http://myhaitiankitchen.blogspot.com for more Haitian recipes and probably better directions.  Or you can come visit us (after furlough!) and we'll get you the real thing!

Haitian Rice, Beans and Creole Sauce

*Cook 1 cup beans in 3 cups water for 2 hours
*Drain beans, reserving cooking water

*Heat ¼ cup oil in pot

*Add ¼ cup bacon and cook (yes, deep fried bacon....us Americans can learn a lot of good tips!)

*Grate ½ coconut
*Rinse grated coconut with water, and squeeze water through a colander (into bowl with bean water), making coconut “milk”, until you have 4 cups.  Then add this to the beans.

*Add parsley
*Add cooked bacon

*Put 2 cups uncooked rice, rinsed, into 2 cups water and cook for ½ hour

*Add ¼ cup butter at the end

*Combine rice and beans

Creole Sauce:

*Make a paste with:

3 Garlic cloves

1 Green Onion

Small dried Shrimp

*Heat 1/8 cup oil in pot

*Add 2-3 tbsp tomato paste, or ketchup

*Add 1 cup water and stir
*Add two chicken bullion cubes

*Add parsley, pepper, and previous paste
*Add 1/2 Tbsp lime juice or vinegar

*Add sliced onions and green peppers
*Cook on stovetop until veggies are tender

Serve sauce over rice and beans.