Saturday, August 24 Venezuelan Black Bean over Yellow Garlic Rice Rating: 4.25

We ended up eating dinner pretty late because we’d been out running around most of the day. We started off getting up super early for me to volunteer and for Seth to shoot video at the Ahimsa House Walk, Wag & Run 5K and 1 Mile Fun Run. Ahimsa House is one of my favorite charities – they are the only organization in Georgia who provides help for victims of domestic violence to escape with their companion animals. So many victims stay in abusive situations because they have nowhere to go with their fur babies. Ahimsa House finds emergency shelter (vets, kennels, foster homes) for animals while the victims get back on their feet and find a safe place to live, then the animals are reunited with them. Anyway, the 5K is one of their big fundraisers and we had to be there at 6:00 am to help set up. Afterwards we went to the Peachtree Road Farmer’s Market and then goofed around in the neighborhood for a while. I didn’t start cooking until later in the day than I’d planned, and these beans take a few hours. They’re worth the wait, but you have to plan ahead and make them when you have a lot of time on your hands. The recipe is in Viva Vegan and is our favorite for black beans. It makes a lot, so you’ll have leftovers for lunch and then some. They’re really good in enchiladas or tacos or burritos. I’ve also been on a little bit of a yellow garlic rice kick lately. I can’t help it – it’s just so dang good. The recipe for it is also in Viva Vegan. Seth likes to make pico de gallo, so we got some beautiful, fresh tomatoes from the farmer’s market and topped the beans and rice with the pico. We meant to get an avocado too, since his homemade guacamole is also perfect on these, but we forgot. Use some tortilla chips as a fork and think of it as deconstructed nachos.