Cooking with Staples: Black Beans/Brown Rice

I didn't have really high expectations for this dish. Things billing themselves as healthy vegetarian weeknight dinners do not tend to wow me. While wow might be overstating it, I am a bit impressed with the results of the Black Beans/Brown Rice recipe.
This is a recipe that clearly illustrates why it can be hard to persuade busy people to switch to brown rice though, all those extra nutrients result in a much longer cooking time. In this case the brown rice spends an hour in the oven, vs the 20 minutes or less I can do with white rices (to say nothing of minute rice).

The book will tell you to boil the water in a rice cooker you're not going to cook rice in for this recipe. I went with the microwave.

It's always kind of amazing to just have all the liquid gone.

 There's also a timing imbalance due to the rice's long cooking time. The book will tell you to start cooking the beans after putting the rice in the oven; the beans will be done in less than 1/2 an hour (I estimate about 25 min, including prep). If I repeat this exactly I'll start that process half way though.

Beans, onion, spices. It's kind of everyday magic.

Difficulty Level: Easy
Will It Get Made Again?I will definitely make a version of this again. I'm going to take a serious look at brown rice pressure cooking times first though, because the hour bake kicks this out of easy weeknight scheduling territory for me (I only made this on a weeknight on a day when I working remotely). It hits the cheap, healthy, good trifecta though and for that I give Alton props.

Pictured without the avocado garish I almost forget, but do recommend.