YOU WILL NEED:

Like 3 green bell peppers
A roughly similar amount of yellow onions (usually 2-3)
Cilantro
So much garlic
A can of gandules aka pigeon peas
A jar of pimento olives
A jar of capers
A lemon
As much rice as you wanna make (like 1/2 to 1 cup per person you're trying to feed)
A few big cans of pinto beans
Tomato paste
Vegetable oil
Achiote (aka annato) seeds OR Turmeric
Oregano
Cumin
Adobo seasoning (with cumin) (I know it's redundant but this is how i was taught)

PHASE 0 (Optional): ACHIOTE OIL

Traditionally the rice is yellow because of the achiote oil. The way you make it is you take like a cup of vegetable oil, put it in a small pot with a handful of achiote seeds (not the powder, the actual seeds), and cook it on the lowest possible heat until the oil turns dark red. Then you strain out the seeds. If you do this, use some of the oil to cook the sofrito and put the rest in the water when you make the rice. Honestly this is a hassle, though, so if you don't want to do it you can just use turmeric to make the sofrito and rice yellow instead.

PHASE 1 (Not optional): SOFRITO

The sofrito is the base for both the rice and the beans.
Dice all the onions and bell peppers and sautee them in a big pan.
Fry in achiote oil, or if not using achiote oil, just fry in regular oil with plenty of turmeric
Add a bunch of minced garlic and minced cilantro.
Season with oregano, cumin, and black pepper, and use the adobo instead of salt (in France I just used salt and maybe I found some garlic powder I don't remember).
Cook this down until it's well browned, and add a squeeze of lemon juice.
This is the flavor backbone of everything so I generally don't worry about it being a little overseasoned.

PHASE 2: RICE

Put however much rice you're making in a big pot.
Drain the capers, olives, and gandules into a measuring cup, and use the liquid as part of your liquid for the rice.
Use as many cups of liquid as you have rice, plus one.
Some people use stock as part of the liquid. It's good but not necessary.
Anyway, dump the olives, capers, gandules, and half the sofrito into the pot with the rice.
Also add some vegetable oil -- either the achiote oil if you made that, or just regular vegetable oil.
If you didn't do the achiote thing, add some more turmeric until it looks right.
Bring the rice to a boil
While you're waiting for it to heat up, salt the liquid.
Keep adding salt until any more salt would make it too salty. (This sounds dumb as hell but it's what my stepmom told me when she taught me and it does make sense trust me)
When the liquid has boiled off a little, such that the olives are no longer floating but are instead sitting on the rice, cover and reduce heat to low.
Let simmer for about 45 minutes. If you forget to set a timer and then smell burning, you have let it simmer for too long, but apparently nobody minds so go off.

PHASE 3: BEANS

The beans take almost no time to make once you have the sofrito, so it's pretty easy to time them to be done at the same time as the rice.
Mix pinto beans, sofrito, and about 1 little can's worth of tomato paste in a big pot
You can also add fresh vegetables at this point if you want -- more onion, bell pepper, garlic, and cilantro -- but I almost never do.
Season to match everything else -- oregano, cumin, adobo, black pepper. Don't add turmeric because the tomato paste provides the color here
Bring to a boil, reduce to a simmer, and just keep it warm until the rice is ready to serve.