Curried beanzen rice, voting and helping

Sometimes food doesn't look really photogenic, but it's fine as dinner. Today it's cheap, nutritious, interesting curried beans over brown jasmine rice. The rice is fine, separate grains, but photographed oddly.

I've been following Jack Monroe for years,  brilliant brit food activist, who has known real hardship firsthand, single mom. Witness to parliamentary committees on food and poverty. Multiple cooking world prizewinner, speaker.

She's basically a civic saint. Her latest book, being crowdfunded to donate with food to UK food banks, is Tin Can Cook. It's all about interesting food made out of canned goods you're likely to get at your food bank. The food is interesting even if you can afford food, and I thought I'd try my own take.

This is not from the book, not available in the US, and I think she'd have made it look a lot better. And, it's a long story, but her preferred pronoun is they. I'm saying she here just not to hijack the point of the post.

Anyway, I used a can of kidney beans, and one of great northern, rinsed, simmered, salt, cumin, curry powder, lemon juice, bit of tamarind paste. Scooped out surplus water to freeze for soup, simmer some more. Immersion blender a few seconds.  Served over jasmine rice. A lot better than it looks. And one cup of rice, two cans of beans will make at least three meals. Beans and rice are an ancient pairing giving more complete nutrition in combination than separately.

One other issue is that recycling food cans is  much easier on the environment than frozen food plastic wrappings. This surprised me a bit, having avoided canned goods in general, but now rethinking, since the farmstand seas is almost over.

Also asking you to help your own food bank. I know people working full-time who still need help with food. Over the long run, we need to vote in the US on Tuesday, unless we already did, to put more humane people in power. Short run we can help locally.  And the US is not the only place where there's hardship. We can all do our bit, as they used to say.