Rice and black beans, turkey with roasted jalapeño and mozzarella

I wanted rice and beans. And I have Seal-a-Meal frozen packages of Thanksgiving turkey.

Mum, bless her, never made turkey leftovers like this.

I made two mistakes. 

1) I used the Goya chicken seasoning with annatto to color the rice. 1/2 a package and that is too much for 3/4 cup rice. So it turned out dark orange instead of light orange. It's just weird. But it tastes great.

2) I added 1 teaspoon molasses to the soaked black beans too early. I forgot molasses is an acid and that prevents the surface of the beans from softening. Bummer!  I needed the beans to become soft. And black beans are small enough that should happen rather quickly. But it didn't because of the small amount of acid.

The gravy is turkey broth from the same Thanksgiving turkey. It is excellent. Cooked in a pressure pot, the cracked bones released all their protein and the entire carton is aspic, a meat jelly. That tells you it's rich. That straight broth was thickened with polenta corn meal toasted in the pan before the turkey aspic was added, boom, instant gravy. The jalapeño was roasted in the same pan and  removed before the cornmeal was toasted. 

So it goes like this.

1) Small pan heated 

2) Jalapeño quartered, membrane intact, and fried skin side down in the pan until it blisters with black bubbles. Removed from pan.

3) Corn meal toasted in the pan. It darkens in color.

4) Turkey aspic (with faint layer of turkey fat) added to the pan to boil

5) Boom, gravy.

6) Thawed turkey heated in the gravy.

7) Plated, turkey, gravy, jalapeño, mozzarella.