Black beans, rice, tomato, miso sauce

This meal saved my life tonight. 

I've had this feeling of running on empty before. Desperately empty. When I was a kid it happened a lot. Worse then because I didn't control things. 

NO!  You cannot have any raw French fries, it'll ruin your dinner! Now piss off until you're called. 

That sort of thing. I forgot about this feeling until now, energy drain, things not working right. Electrolyte depletion. Shakes. Weakness. Lightness. 

It's really stupid to wait until 8:30 at night to finally have something to eat. The awful watermelon earlier doesn't count, that didn't get consumed.  

Rice pot with paper towel gasket. 

* 1 cup short grain rice

* 1.75 cups water

The water with rice is brought to a roiling boil. That gets the steam going confidently but it is much too hot for the rest of the steaming. The heat is cut to nearly 0. The minute that it takes between a confident roiling boil and barely steaming is critical because the rice is already absorbing water and if the rice absorbs water too fast then it sticks to the bottom of the pot. So in this minute of transition between high heat and low, between open pot and closed pot,  the cook scrapes the rice off the bottom of the pot while lifting the pot off and on the burner to maintain steaming but without the rice sticking until finally the minute is over and the cook clamps on the lid confident that the pot will continue to steam the rice gently.  I seem to have used the word 'confident' three times. If you're so impetuous as to open the lid any time during this 35 minutes then you're on your own, I cannot help you. 

25 minutes steaming gently on low heat. Cover still on. 10 additional minutes off heat to continue steaming even more gently. 

The beans are cooked in 2 X the measured amount of water under low pressure for 40 minutes. That resulted in a small amount of extra water at the bottom of the pot which turned black. By low pressure I mean the first of two red notches on a pressure valve, or half pressure, or 7.5 LBS pressure. 

* 1 cup black beans

* 2 cups water

* 1/4 teaspoon salt

So, then I go to pour a glass of mango juice and there is a bug on the juice box. This one. 

It's a good bug innit -- a ladybird beetle. 

Miso sauce: 

*  1/2 cup water

*  2 level tablespoon miso

*  1/4 teaspoon dry hot chile pepper flakes

*  1 tablespoon Sriracha 

*  1 tablespoon mirin

*  2 tablespoons miso

*  black pepper but no salt

*  1/8 teaspoon garlic powder

*  1/4 teaspoon toasted sesame seed oil. 

The miso sauce is sweet. I do not know why I didn't come to this earlier. It is basically some of my favorite things in sauce form. I had enjoyed plain miso before as condiment to beans and rice and all kinds of vegetables independently, but it is even better as a sauce with a few favorite Asian additions.