Indian-style Rice and Beans

John and I recently came upon a few recipes for rice and beans, the classic poor student meal. Since we both exhausted our fun money during our road trip, we're looking for recipes like this one that are pretty cheap, but still delicious and relatively healthy.






















This recipe comes from No Meat Athlete, written by a guy who runs ultramarathons and has chosen to eat a vegetarian (and mostly vegan) diet for several years, in part because he's convinced it helps him run faster.























His post includes a few variations on the traditional rice and beans meal, and we went with the Indian-style recipe. This was so good. We were both really surprised at how flavorful it was. That makes two pretty easy Indian dinners to come out of our kitchen in the pat 3 weeks. We will definitely make this again soon, especially since a can of chickpeas is only $0.79.

They recommend having a mango with this, and we decided to try one. We both loved it, and agreed that it would be delicious added into the chickpea mixture, right before serving it. It's crazy how good the mango tastes with all the other spices.

Indian-style Rice and Beans
from No Meat Athlete

• 1 cup dry brown rice
• 1 can drained and rinsed chickpeas
• 1 onion, chopped
• 1 clove garlic, minced
• 1 tbsp vegetable oil
• 1 tbsp curry powder
• 1/2 tsp cinnamon
• 1 can diced tomatoes with green chilies
• a thumb-sized piece fresh ginger, minced
• 1/4 cup chopped fresh cilantro

Cook the brown rice. Heat up the oil in a large pan over medium-high heat and fry the onion for 5 minutes. Add the garlic and fry for an additional 5 minutes. Add the chickpeas and cook for 1-2 minutes.
Stir the curry powder and cinnamon into the chickpea and onion mixture. Fry for a minute, than add the ginger and tomatoes and their juices. Cook on medium-high heat for 5 minutes, until the tomatoes no longer taste raw. Stir the cilantro into the rice. Add salt and pepper to taste.