rice & beans: Jamaica me hungry

Last night, Ben and I had our friend Richard over for dinner. Richard told us that he'd like good, tasty ways to prepare tofu, to health-up his diet. Our very favorite regular-use tofu dish is jerk tofu. I'll post that recipe later today, but the real story here, at least for me, is that the dishes we made to go with our treasured jerk tofu were kind of completely awesome. And I have Jamaica (and Epicurious) to thank for my favorite new grain-bean side dish: Jamaican Rice & Beans.

Forgot to take pictures. Please enjoy this Jamaican flag.

The recipe from Epicurious seemed good enough, but I modified it a teensy bit, to use brown rice instead of white and to substitute black beans for the kidney beans. Pigeon Peas would probably be great in this, as well! Also, since we make a pretty spicy jerk, I left out the original green chili.

Jamaican (esque) Rice & Beans
serves 3 as a side dish or maybe 4

1 cup of light coconut milk
2 1/2 cups of vegetable stock
1 teaspoon dried thyme
1/4 teaspoon allspice
1 14 ounce can of black beans or a cup and a half of home-cooked black beans
3/4 cup of brown rice
1 cup of thinly sliced green onions

Combine the coconut milk, 2 cups of the stock, thyme, and allspice in a stockpot and bring to a boil. Pour in the rice, stir to combine, and reduce to a low simmer. Cook covered for 15 minutes, uncover and cook (adding additional stock or water if necessary) until the rice is just tender to the bite. Stir in the onions, add 1/2 cup of stock, and cook for an additional 5 minutes.