Part I · Heart Healthy

Prep time: 10 mins (plus the 10-minute garlic rest) Cook time: 25 mins (12 simmer + 10 rest) Yield: 3–4 servings, enough to carry two days of packed lunches

This is a one-pot lunch staple: low in saturated fat, high in fibre, with no added salt, and built to be cooked in a batch and carried to a job site. Jasmine rice is toasted in fat before any water goes in, then steamed with a heavy dose of crushed red pepper and parsley. The black beans and raw-prepared garlic are folded in off the heat and left to steam through.

First cooked October 2026, at the start of the LDL diet test. It replaced the daily sandwich-shop lunch.

Why It Works

  1. Toasting the rice: Sautéing the dry grains in oil and butter until some turn golden gives a nutty, roasted base, and coating each grain in fat keeps the cooked rice separate rather than gluey.
  2. Fat, mostly olive oil: Extra virgin olive oil does the sautéing; the single tablespoon of butter is there for flavour. Olive oil’s fat is mostly monounsaturated, which is the kind that helps LDL when it replaces saturated fat.
  3. Soluble fibre: Black beans carry soluble fibre, the type shown to lower LDL cholesterol, plus potassium and plant protein.
  4. Heat instead of salt: The crushed red pepper is not a garnish here. It is the seasoning, so the pot needs no added salt. The only meaningful sodium comes from the canned beans.
  5. Allicin-prepared garlic: The cloves are crushed and left to rest about 10 minutes before they meet the heat (the JFS garlic protocol), then go in at the end, off direct flame.

Ingredients

The Base:

  • Jasmine Rice: 2 cups, dry
  • Extra Virgin Olive Oil: enough to sauté the rice properly (about 1–2 Tbsp)
  • Butter: 1 Tbsp
  • Water: 2.5 cups

The Seasoning:

  • Crushed Red Pepper: 1/8 cup (2 Tbsp). Yes, that much.
  • Parsley Flakes: 1/8 cup (2 Tbsp)

The Fold-In:

  • Black Beans: 1 can (a second can is also good), drained. Rinsing cuts the can’s sodium by roughly 40%.
  • Garlic: 2–3 cloves, crushed and rested 10 minutes

Execution Protocol

Phase 1: The Toast

  1. Crush the 2–3 cloves garlic first and set it aside to rest while everything else happens.
  2. Put the 2 cups rice, about 1–2 Tbsp olive oil and 1 Tbsp butter into the pot over high heat.
  3. Sauté, stirring, until the rice is somewhat toasted.

Phase 2: The Steam

  1. Add the 2.5 cups water, the 1/8 cup (2 Tbsp) crushed red pepper and the 1/8 cup (2 Tbsp) parsley flakes. Stir once.
  2. Bring to a boil.
  3. Put the lid on tightly and turn the heat down to medium-low.
  4. Wait 12 minutes. Don’t lift the lid.
  5. Remove from heat.

Phase 3: The Fold-In

  1. Add the 1 can black beans (a second can is also good), drained, and the 2–3 cloves rested garlic to the pot.
  2. Lid tightly again and wait 10 minutes off the heat.
  3. Fluff and serve.

Variations

  • With flounder: For a full pot, bake 2 lb of flounder fillets, splash with lemon juice afterward, chop, and fold in along with a second can of black beans. That adds roughly 110 g of lean protein (about 14 g per 4 oz raw). Check the fillets for stray pin bones as you chop; “boneless” fillets occasionally carry one.
  • With beef gelatin (2026-10-07): On reheating, stir in about 2 cups of hot, heavy beef-gelatin solution and bring it just to the boil. This makes a thick, savoury, almost stew-like bowl.
  • The Riverview Bowl and the Riverview Garden Bowl: plain, dog-friendly versions of this pot with fish (and, in the Garden Bowl, peas and broccoli). Each is now a recipe of its own, with a full Meal Profile.

Batch & Food Safety Notes

  • Cooked rice can carry Bacillus cereus spores, which survive boiling. Cool leftovers fast: spread them in a shallow container and refrigerate within about an hour.
  • Keep it cold until lunch (an insulated bag with an ice pack on a job site).
  • Eat within 3–4 days. Reheat until steaming hot throughout. Reheating kills the bacteria but cannot undo toxin formed during slow cooling, which is why cooling fast matters more than reheating hot.

Recipe by Tony Seliquini. Transcribed from his description on 2026-10-06, with the olive oil he added afterward (“enough to sauté rice properly”).

Written October 2026 · part of the Recipes collection.