We all survived Thanksgiving Day from the sound of it, at least nobody has reported any disastrous kitchen fires or family melt downs. Maybe it's too soon for the reports to start coming in.

The weather has turned cold, so time to stir up a hearty dish like red beans and rice.




This recipe is from the back of the Small Red Beans bag, but you can also use red kidney beans.

Louisiana Red Beans and Rice
1 pound dry red beans, soaked overnight in salt water
2 tablespoons vegetable or olive oil
2 cups chopped celery
1 1/2 cups chopped onion
1 green pepper, chopped
1 tablespoon garlic, chopped
2 pounds andouille sausage, sliced (or kielbasa or whatever you have)
1 teaspoon dried thyme, crushed
2 bay leaves
1 teaspoon Tabasco sauce
1 teaspoon Worcestershire sauce
1 teaspoon cider vinegar (or white or wine vinegar)
1 teaspoon Creole seasoning
1 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon black pepper
4 cups chicken broth

Drain and rinse the beans, discarding the soaking water. Put them in a cooking pot, bring to a boil, cover, and turn the heat down so they simmer. Cook for about an hour or until soft. In a skillet, saute the vegetables in the oil until soft, adding the garlic at the very end so it doesn't get browned. Drain the beans and combine all the ingredients in a large pot or a crock pot. Simmer for 2 hours. The recipe on the bag says to simmer uncovered, which you can't do in a crock pot so well, so figure out what you want to do. I'm cooking mine in the crock pot and I'll deal with the evaporation issue if I have to.

Serve with cooked rice. Makes about 8 servings.

Note: you may not have every one of these ingredients, and I'm not sure what is in Creole seasoning, if it's that blackened fish rub, or that 'magic' powder Chef Paul Prudhomme markets, but don't let that deter you. Just put in what you've got, and I'm sure it will be fine.

For vegetarian, leave out the sausage and use vegetable broth, as if I needed to tell you this.

I am blessed to have a jar of "Cajun Trinity with Garlic" from Rex Fine Foods of Metairie, Louisiana. It is a blend of dehydrated garlic slices, onion, green pepper, and celery. My English cousins who were here a couple weeks ago brought it from New Orleans for me. It is the whole reason I bought this bag of small red beans.

I have some mystery sausage out of my freezer that I bought last spring. I can't remember if it is supposed to be Italian or German sausage. That's what I'm seasoning these beans with.

I used to always cook a ham hock with my beans, but have lately been using fresh pork country style ribs instead. There's more meat than you get from the ham hocks and the bones and meat both impart a good flavor that you can Mexican-up with the addition of green chilies and/or salsa, or Hungarian-up with a lot of paprika and some sour cream. A couple of times I bought fresh or smoked pork neck bones for the beans, but the way they are cut causes a lot of sharp, pointy bone fragments that are inconvenient if not downright dangerous.