dinner idea

So today was the first day I 'made' dinner in a long time. It felt so good! I mean, I am not totally back to my old self (who can be when still pregnant) but back enough to get the beans up from the basement last night, put them to soak, start boiling them late morning and then early afternoon prepping the rest of dinner. I also put my rice to soak late morning (gets rid of the phytic acid covering the outside of all whole grains that blocks your ability to absorb vital nutrients). I mean, this is how I normally cook, where I get to think about the meal periodically throughout a 24 hr period and most of the time I start with 1 ingredient and go from there. I started with Pinto beans and then started thinking about what I could do with them. I glanced over some recipies for beans and rice (I have never offically made beans and rice, with the intention of just having that) but then decided to do my own thing, same idea.
So it was so good I had to share:

I boiled 3 cups of dry pinto beans till done but not mushy (1/3 of the cooked beans I saved out for a different dish later in the week) with half an onion.

Then I let liliana use a potato masher and mash 2c of cooked beans with the following spices added in (granulated garlic, granulated onion, season salt, celery salt, and a little sea salt-about 3/4 tsp of the first 2, and 1/2 tsp of the last 3).

In another pot i heated up some sausage (we used some spicy deer sausage given to us by a friend(yummy), about 1/2-3/4 lb)

Then I added olive oil to a clean pot and sauteed 1/2 red pepper and 2 lrg carrots, once tender liliana put in her bean mush, I added the cooked sausage and then used a spoon to add some the of cooked beans with their water (about 3 cups total)

Now everything is in one pot and i let it cook on low for most of the day. I drained the rice about 45 minutes before dinner time and started boiling that on medium, once that was done, dinner was served. Mattie thought it was so good she couldnt stand to wait for it too cool off nad kept putting her fingers into very hot food.anyway...
beans and rice and um, I made ALOT of it!!!!
good thing jacob is off tomorrow, he has been eagerly awaiting my return and has informed me he is so happy I am cooking again:)