Red Beans and Rice

Hey Everyone!  Are you still out there?   Sorry about the lapse in blog posts!  This summer has turned out to be very busy for us.  Perhaps later we will post about all of our travels.

Right now I want to write about Red Beans and Rice.    Have you ever tried it?   It’s Cajun cuisine.  It’s delicious.  This is the recipe I came up with after reading several recipes for Red Beans and Rice and modifying those so I could use ingredients I had on hand.

Red Beans and Rice

1 Tbs. olive oil

1/2 med. onion, diced

2 cloves of garlic, minced

1/2 lbs. smoked sausage, chopped into 1/2 in. pieces

1 15 oz. can Red Kidney beans, drained and rinsed

1 14.5 oz. can stewed tomatoes, undrained

1/2 tsp. Cajun seasoning

salt and pepper to taste

1 cup white rice, cooked

Heat oil in medium sized skillet or pan, over medium heat.  Chop onion, garlic and sausage.  Saute onion in oil 1-2 minute.  Add Sausage and garlic to onions and saute 3-4 minutes.    Add kindney beans, stewed tomoates, Cajun seasoning, and salt and pepper to taste.  Stir, then bring to a boil.  Reduce heat to low and let simmer 15 minutes.  Prepare rice according to package directions.

Serve red bean mixture over rice.  Yield 3 servings.

This recipe is not very spicy at all.  In the future I think I will add several shakes of hot sauce and/or red pepper flakes to the recipe to give it a little heat.  Authentic Red Beans and Rice is spicy and is cooked all day because you’re supposed to use dried beans.  Mine is a lazy version.  Maybe someday I will make “real” Red Beans and Rice and tell you how it goes.  As for now, I really like this recipe and I hope you will too!