It's All in the Sauce

My husband made up a catchy song about beans and rice to entertain the kids. It goes something like this: "Beans and rice, beans and rice, yeah. Beans and rice, beans and rice, whoa." Repeat ad infinitum. The song is amusing the first time around, but by the twentieth repeat, it's...  not so amusing anymore. Kind of like eating beans and rice. Art truly does imitate life!

Sometimes you need a special sauce. Like salsa. But sometimes you don't have any salsa, nor do you have the ingredients necessary for making it. So you have to pull something out of your posterior region, and hope it works. That's what I did a few days ago, and it really did work! This is a creamy sauce with no cream in it, so vegans can enjoy it too. It's a bit tangy, a bit smoky, and it's got a mild kick of chile heat.


Pasilla Almond Sauce
1 cup of raw almonds
1 clove of garlic, chopped
about 5 sprigs of Italian parsley
2 dried pasilla chile peppers* (soaked in about three cups of hot water for 15 minutes, or until soft)
juice of slightly more than half a lemon (or more, to taste)
water (from soaking the pasillas)
salt
pimentón to taste (Spanish smoked paprika)**

Add almonds to a blender, along with garlic, parsley, soaked pasillas, lemon juice, a little salt, and a little pasilla water. Blend. Keep adding the pasilla water and blending until you have a smooth sauce, about the consistency of heavy cream. Remove sauce from blender, add a small amount of pimentón, and more salt and lemon juice if needed. Taste. The pimentón adds smokiness. If you think your sauce needs more smoky flavor, add more pimentón. Just don't add too much, because it's easy to overdo it. Serve on beans and rice, or in a burrito, or on a taco, or in a quesadilla. (See the picture above. I used a picture of my quesadilla because I couldn't make beans and rice look pretty. Use a mild cheddar or jack cheese, and add chopped red onions.) I can also testify that it tastes good on cumin roasted cauliflower. And I am pretty sure it would make a great veggie dip, or even work for vegan nachos.

Now you can keep eating beans and rice, and enjoy their protein-filled, dirt-cheap goodness without feeling bitter about it.

*Note about dried pasilla chiles: They are sometimes called chile negro. They have purplish-black, wrinkled skin, and are about an inch wide and six inches long. I can get them at my local Dekalb Farmer's Market, but a Latin grocery would also be a good source if you can't find them elsewhere. Buy a bunch and stock up.

**Note about pimentón: I bought my pimentón at Dekalb Farmer's Market (yes, they have everything), and I'm not sure where else one might find it, but Whole Foods or a well-stocked grocery store might have it. Or you could always order online. I think it's worth it for the mildly spicy, smoky flavor. For vegetarians, it works really well in things like split pea soup, where you want the smoky background flavor of ham or bacon, without actually using ham or bacon. And don't even mention Liquid Smoke (because I like my smoke to be smoky).

Update: My husband informs me he remembered the "beans and rice" song from Schoolhouse Rock. The name of the song was, of course, "Beans N Rice," and unfortunately those were also the only words he could remember. The Schoolhouse Rock version is much better. Go check it out, so you can teach the real deal to your kids. (As an aside, they should have stuff like this on TV nowadays.)