There's a Puerto Rican dish called Spotted Rooster that is black beans and rice with a bunch of cilantro chopped up and mixed in. Pretty tasty.

I'll make lentils and rice and sprinkle apple cider vinegar and some soy sauce on it for flavor.

And there's a few canned hams in the preps for my favorite - curried lentils and ham. I imagine the ham would taste pretty good with some black eye peas...

The cheap .89 bottles of spices are a good way to have some flavor on hand, especially bay leaves. Just fish them out before serving.

You can make black bean and rice patties that can be eaten in between a hamburger bun. With all of the regular fixins' like mustard, mayo, ketchup, tomato, onions and whatever else, they're tasty.