Brazilian Beans and Rice
Recipe by Jeff Zentner

If you're reading this right now, it's because you're reading Swampland. Which means that you are poor. Fortunately, I have just the thing for you. This is a recipe for red beans that I learned in Brazil. Brazilians eat some variant of this recipe with rice every, and I do mean every single day of their lives, from the time they have teeth until the time they don't have teeth anymore. And not just the poor Brazilians either. The rich ones too. So, if you have any doubts about whether this is a good thing to be eating, go Google some pictures of Brazilians and get back with me on what you find. So here we go.

3 1/2 cups of red beans. you should buy these in one of those Mexican grocery stores where everything is individually labeled with a little orange label. While you're there, buy a coke in a glass bottle made with cane sugar instead of corn syrup, and remind yourself of why this beverage conquered the world.

Now, you need to invest $25 or so in a pressure cooker. This will pay for itself after about two weeks of eating red beans and rice, because a meal of red beans and rice costs approximately $.17. If you don't use a pressure cooker, you will be waiting a week for your beans to cook. READ THE INSTRUCTIONS ON THE PRESSURE COOKER. Don't blow yourself up.

Soak the beans overnight in COLD water in the pressure cooker. You won't believe how much they swell up. If you mentally inserted "that's what she said" after that last sentence, punch yourself in the lip. Do
it until it bleeds. Because the beans will swell as you soak them make sure that, when it comes time to cook them, they have not grown more than half the volume of the pressure cooker. The next day, pour off
the water, which will smell vaguely farty. This process actually makes it so that you don't smell vaguely farty after eating them. Replace with hot water.

Put the lid on the pressure cooker and get to cookin'. Once the thingamajig on top of the pressure cooker starts to spin or dance around, set a timer for an hour and 10 minutes. Listen to some Nick Cave, because that's what you do if you read Swampland. When it gets done, take the lid off the pressure cooker (READ THE INSTRUCTIONS) and put the beans back on to boil. In another pan, pour in some olive oil or butter. dice up some garlic. Brown the garlic in the olive oil or butter. Pour it in the beans. keep boiling the beans until they thicken up. Add salt, Tobasco, whatever. It's your life.

Now for the rice: put some rice in a rice cooker and cook it. You can get really fancy with the rice. Brazilians actually fry the dry rice kernels first. None of this makes any difference.

Now, you have about two weeks worth of one of the healthiest foods you can eat, and it's practically free. Fiber, protein, all of the things you don't get from eating Ramen. Eat it every day. And I wasn't joking when I said that if you sit down and do the math, you've spent pennies on a meal of beans and rice. It's good enough for Brazilians, it's good enough for you.