Really Great Tex-Mex Style Baked Beans

     Page Two Hundred Seventy-Five.
     These are so good and so easy. Admittedly, this is hardly what I'd call "cooking"; assembling is more to the point. But sometimes assembling is fun, too.
     INGREDIENTS:
     1 can of chili-style baked beans. I prefer Bush's Chili Magic chili starter, medium, but you use whatever you like.
     3-4 tablespoons of sofrito sauce (sometimes called refogado sauce). Sofrito is a Hispanic-style tomato sauce. It's kind of like a smoother version of the salsa you dip your chips into, but it's actually a cooking sauce. Goya brand is what I always purchase. You can always use salsa which has been put through the food processor for a quick moment, or you can even make your own sofrito sauce which good Hispanics cooks do. But I won't get into that right now.
     1 or 1 &1/2 tablespoons of honey.
     A few dashes, more or less to your taste, of Tabasco sauce, or your favorite hot sauce.
     DIRECTIONS:
     Heat everything together, cook for a while and serve. That's it.
     I serve beans over my own, special, wild rice*. I top rice/beans with cheese and micro 'till melted. Then, pour on some taco sauce and top with a little reduced-fat sour cream and sprinkle on some chopped scallions. It's a whole meal which is filling, nutritious and delicious.

*Add 1 or 2 vegetable soup bullion cubes to the water you're cooking the rice in. This little trick pushes that rice right over the top into heaven.

Even Better Green Pea Soup

     Page Two Hundred.
     A couple of weeks ago, I wrote about some green pea soup that I made. believe it or not, I actually figured out a way to make it even more nutritious and delicious. I added a couple of spoonfuls of pre-cooked wild rice to each bowlful, thus increasing the flavor and protein content. Then, I sprinkled some blue cheese across the top. You wouldn't think it possible for something so tasty to actually be healthy, but it was.