Easy Red Beans and Rice Recipe…and some charlotte

After our stint in New Orleans we wanted to do some red beans and rice. Now there is no way I can make it like locals do, or even how Chris’ grandmother does. Mainly I want something quick and easy, not something I have to soak the beans overnight and all that jazz. Its too much pressure.

Here is a quick and easy red beans and rice recipe for you to check out in your home and all the short cuts! Plus, this is a great meal that lasts a few days and coming from someone that doesn’t like left overs, it reheats nicely.

Ingredients:

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• 1 package of sausage…I use Johnsonville New Orleans Brand Andouille Recipe
• 1 onion diced
• 3 garlic cloves diced up
• Cajun Seasoning, I use Zatarains Creole Seasoning
• 2 cups uncooked long grained white rice
• 2.5 (14 ounce) cans chicken broth (i actually use water and the chicken broth cubes)
• 2 (15 ounce) cans kidney beans ( i use dark red ones)
• bay leaves (to taste)

1) Cut up sausage into slices and fry up in pan..I personally pour a tad bit of oil in the pan and heat and then dump the sausage in.

2) Take out sausage and put on a plate (That’s my new Oneida plate…it makes dark food look pretty I think)

3) Leave grease in pan and use that to fry up your chopped onions for about 4 minutes or so.

4) Add in your garlic and creole seasoning to taste…just a pinch will do. It gets salty quick, so be careful. I give that about a minute and then add in the uncooked white rice right on top of those onions and garlic.

6) Saute up for a few minutes your uncooked rice with the onions and garlic…basically enough time to turn it over and let it get a little brown

7) Add your broth and kidney beans to the pot. I don’t drain my kidney beans. Bring to a boil, then reduce, cover, and simmer for about 15-20 minutes. WATCH YOUR POT or your bottom can burn on the rice…water evaporates quickly.

About this time, if your house is like my house, something will happen that will pull your attention away.

In my case, this was the point Charlotte walked in with this:

As she is standing there, it pees on her hand…and the floor. Enter yelling about toad pee. I toss her a towel and tell her to clean it up and please take it back outside.

Poor toad.

Right about now, dinner is sticking to the bottom of the pan because I am not stirring it properly and I have to change pans entirely and pour in some more broth.

So my advice is to tie your kids up and leave them in a closet while you cook dinner.

Kidding.

Sorta.

My real advice is to watch the whole “rice and broth” scenario. Because I had to change pots midstream and readd some water, you might have some small adjustments to that point. Make sure you start out with a deep enough pan or pot. Rice really fluffs up.

8 ) Once your rice is done, remove from heat and stir your already cooked up sausage back in. You can let it stand about 10 minutes to make sure the rice is good and tender. Adding a little parsley or hot sauce is a choice at this point. You Southerners will add hot sauce and you Northerners will add ketchup.

My weakness is french bread, so I broiled up some french bread* to dip with it too!

(*hey not claiming this is a healthy meal…just a hearty one!)

I wanted to point out that Oneida sent us a set of these beautiful new dishes to test out. Our last dishes, that were just Walmart brand, have been chipped, broken, dropped, and lost and I took the risk on Oneida with their new Porcelain line and have been pleasantly surprised.  Personally I hear “porcelain” and think of a grandmother, but truly Charlotte’s eating on the same plates we are with no troubles.

Its like porcelain for the modern era!

They are microwave safe (and yes, we have used ourselves there…we did reheat this meal last night) and I have thrown in the dishwasher 7 days this week with no chips or cracks as of yet.

I also think they make the meals look pretty.

I realize that sounds petty, but our old dishes were brown, more of a Chinese kinda of feel, and I didn’t realize how much lighter and happier our meals looked till I served one of us with these Tranquility Blue dishes and one plate with the old ones last night. Service for 4 was $180 and now down to only $69.99!! Family friendly pricing.

Its the small things, right?

My only tip on the back end is you will have a lot of food. Now keep in mind that we are a family of three, and one of those three wont touch this kind of stuff.  I’ll give you 1 hint on which one of us prefers PB&J to Creole.

But if you plan on reheating, you may want to add more of the sausage on the front end. Maybe 2 packages of sausage is better.

I also think you could add some lean hamburger meat if you wanted or even substitute the sausage for hamburger.

Either way, it was Yum.

Happy Cooking!

~Trisha

PS Cuisinart is doing a recipe swap for the east and west coast on August 10th and I am going to submit this one…but you submit yours to them and they send you one back from the other side of the US. Kind of a cool idea. You can also win some kitchen stuff if you like to cook. I kinda suck at it generally, but I do like new stuff. HA!

Oh and if you want healthy recipes, you are in the wrong spot