When you're feeling down...cook your heart away!

It has been a hard couple of weeks. I am still currently unemployed and it's become extremely discouraging. You tend to ask yourself, why did I go to college for? Why do I have bachelors for? And you find yourself settling as well. Applying for regular assistant or receptionist positions instead of those in your field. Because the assistant jobs are actually hiring and are full-time positions. And so in times like these I try to think of positive things that will lift up my spirit. You can't allow unemployment to get you down and depressed, as hard as it may be. So I do what helps me most. I write and I cook.

Last night I came home and decided to make abuela's rice and beans. And as I was cooking I thought about some of the funny stories she shared whenever we were cooking together. The night she showed me how to make her Christmas cake we spoke about cherries, since we were putting some on the cake. She told me how much she loved cherries from the jar. "When I was a little girl I didn't really like to eat a lot, so my mother would take me to an ice cream parlor and order me some ice cream but all I would eat was the cherry on top," she said in spanish. Oh abuela, she always makes me laugh so much.

I followed her recipe exactly, because I wanted it to taste like i was eating her food. And it came out delicious. I think she would be proud. Check out her recipe below!

Abuela's recipe for Romano beans

Ingredients:
-Two cans of Goya Romano beans
-Half a red onion
-Half a green pepper
-Half a red pepper
-A cap full of olive oil
-a little less than half a cap full of vinegar
-4-5 cloves of garlic
-Adobo
-Grounded Oregano
-A tablespoon of tomato paste
-salt
-Sazon Goya Seasoning (Con Culantro y Achiote)
-Cilantro
-Home-made sofrito( see asopao recipe for sofrito recipe)

1. So the first step is to take a sauce pot and add about a large cooking spoon full of olive oil.
2. Then throw in half a red onion, half a green pepper and half a red pepper.
3. Then finely cut up the garlic cloves and in a Mortar and Pestle add the chopped garlic cloves and sprinkle a little bit of adobo and oregano and crushed it all with the pestle.
4. Now add the crushed garlic to the pot.
5. Pour the two cans of beans into the pot.
5. Then take one of the cans and pour it half way with water, then add the water to the pot.
6. Add the vinegar and let it simmer for a couple of minutes.
7. Then add one tablespoon of tomato paste
8. Taste it, if you feel it needs salt add a pack of Sazon Goya seasoning (Con Culantro y achiote)
9. I felt like mines still needed some more flavor so I added a tablespoon of home-made sofrito.
10. Let it sit for about 10 minutes while covered
11. When ready to serve, take out all the cilantro, peppers, onion, etc.
15. And make sure to enjoy!

This helped so much I just might cook something tonight!