First dinner - Avocado rice bowl with black beans and mango

After an exhausting day in the studio it was so nice to come back to my new place, take a hot shower and make a simple dinner that's both healthy and delicious! I don't have that many food options in my kitchen but everything that's in those cupboards can make such a wide variety of tasty foods. For my first meal I decided to make a simple rice bowl with a twist.

Avocado Rice Bowl:

This is incredibly simple to make and incredibly delicious to eat. It's the best of both worlds. This recipe is for one serving.

Ingredients:
~Brown basmati rice - 1 cup
~Avocado - 1
~Lime - 1 half
~Cilantro
~Salt - 1 pinch
~Pepper - 1 pinch
~Black beans - 1/2 can
~Mango - 1 half


Start by cooking the brown rice. I use a rice cooker which makes things pretty easy. All I have to do is pour in the single cup of rice and 2 1/4 cups of water and the cooker does the rest. Rice takes a while to cook so I made the avocado dip while I waited. Check the instructions on your rice box to make sure you use the correct amount of water for 1 cup of rice.

While the rice is cooking, peel, pit and mash the avocado. Chop and sprinkle in however much cilantro you feel is appropriate. I'm not the biggest cilantro fan (although it's growing on me) so I only added about half a handful. Next squeeze half a lime and add a pinch of salt and pepper. Mix this all up.

By the time you finish making the avocado dip, the rice will probably still be cooking...slowly but surely. I know you're craving to dig into that beautiful bowl of avocado but you'll have to wait a little longer. Might as well get ahead of the game and heat up black beans while you wait. I used a can of black beans so all I needed to do was pour them in a pot and wait for them to heat.

Slicing the mango takes only a minute or two but if you're still waiting on the rice, why not do it now? You can really use as much or as little mango as you'd like. I cut 3 big slices which is about 1/2 of a mango.

Eventually the rice will be ready! Pour all of the rice into the avocado dip. Mix it all up so the rice is completely covered in the delicious avocado. Now pour the black beans on top. I didn't end up using the entire can of black beans, so I saved whatever I had left in the pot after pouring my desired amount into the bowl. I ended up saving about 1/2 the can to eat another time. Lastly, just arrange the mango in a pretty way. There you have it! A beautiful rice bowl created with your own two hands! I wasn't kidding when I said this recipe was simple.

This was the first dinner I made in my new apartment and it was a goodie. It's inspired me to make more delicious recipes that are equally as simple and equally (or even more) mouthwatering! More recipes will be coming soon so stay tuned.