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Rob's red beans and rice

Red beans and rice is an emblematic dish of Louisiana Creole cuisine traditionally made on Mondays with Kidney beans, vegetables, spices and pork bones as left over from Sunday dinner, cooked together slowly in a pot and served over rice. Meats such as ham, sausage, and tasso ham are also frequently used in the dish.

Red beans and rice is hands down one of my favorite creole dishes. It can also be made on a budget and it tastes great to boot. Ready to try your hand? Here is what you will need:

Cook time: about 3 hours

First you will want to soak your beans over night to soften them up. Drain the beans, put them in your pot and add approximately 6 cups of water along with the bouillon cubes to add a little salt and flavor. Now is a good time to add the onion powder, garlic powder and the two bay leaves.

Set on the stove and put on medium heat. You are not trying to cook it fast, we are aiming for “low and slow.”

Next, prepare the andouille sausage by cutting the links in to small chunks. It should come already fully cooked, but I like to place it in a skillet on medium heat to brown it a bit and get some of the juices out. Once browned, in to the bean pot it goes.

Now it is time to cook down the vegetables in the freshly vacated skillet to allow the onions, bell pepper, and celery to soak up some of the andouille flavor. Cook them down until the onions and celery start to clarify. Once done, put your vegetables in the pot.

Once everything is in the pot the real work begins. The first two hours will be stirring the pot every 20 minutes or so. The beans will want to settle to the bottom of the pot and will burn if you are not careful. I use a big cooking spoon to stir from the bottom. At this point I will use the big cooking spoon to mash some of the beans against the side of the pot to help thicken things up. Be sure to add water as required.

The final hour will be stirring frequently to make sure the beans do not burn. Things should be pretty thick now, you can add water to thin it if needed.

Serve over rice.

This is one of my favorite recipes and tastes great, but it tastes even better the next day!

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