Adventurous Cooking Night: Red Beans and Rice
Monday calls for something easy to cook. Something I can throw on the stove and leave alone for a few hours. I also heard an interview on NPR with a New Orleans musician/cook and it got me hungry for red beans and rice, so away I went!
I used this recipe from NOLA Cuisine. Sadly I didn’t have any Andouille and I couldn’t find any tasso (probably because I didn’t want to drive out to Harris Teeter and pay a million dollars for it), so I did cheat and use turkey sausage which I know is a TERRIBLE BLASPHEME against all things red beans and rice, but that’s how it went.
I also used this recipe for Creole boiled rice which is basically just rice (I used basmati) with a lot of salt and a little bay leaf. The thing about this is…I don’t know why I ever had a problem with this, but my rice always turned out kind of gloppy before. I was using the “3 cups water to 1 cup rice, and boil the heck out of it” method of cooking, until this. I will never do that again now that the internets have shown me the ways of cooking rice so that individual grains can be discerned! After the first round I did cut down a LOT on the salt though. I can salt my rice after the fact if I want it…don’t need to be encouraging heart attacks now do I?
I *ahem* may have doubled the recipes of both beans and rice. Just possibly. But I swear that has nothing to do with the four freezer containers of red beans and rice I have in my freezer for future minimum-effort yumminess.
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Verdict:
Tastiness Holy crud. Get away from my table, all that is MINE.
Simplicity Easy, but takes a fair amount of chopping prep time.
Cost It’s beans. And rice.
Worth Another Try? Only when I run out of leftovers…
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