Red Beans & Rice

I don’t know if I’ve ever made red beans and rice, per se.  I guess in my mind, it’s always been a dish that is more like a pilaf- a rice dish with beans and veggies and seasonings mixed into it.  So the other day, when I came up with this idea to make red beans and rice for dinner, I thought of doing it differently- of making it more like a stew, served over a bed of rice.

Homemade cornbread to accompany?  This was terribly addicting, and I suspect, this is actually what is meant when someone talks about making and eating red beans and rice.

Remember those ingredients we used yesterday to make our sausage pasta?  Well, here’s where we use the other halves of those peppers and onions.  Here is another no-recipe recipe.  Follow the method, and adjust it to use the seasonings that you prefer- I love recipes like that!

I started, again, with some bacon fat.  Bacon fat and beans just go together.  As always, if you don’t have any on hand, just use oil, but promise me, the next time you make bacon, you’ll save the grease and stow it in the fridge.  Just a small teaspoon of the stuff elevates a dish to places you didn’t think it could go.  Keep it in a small half-pint canning jar in the fridge and it will keep for a very long time.

So I put a few teaspoons of bacon grease in my pot and let it get all melty and fragrant, and then I added my half a bell pepper and half an onion that I already had chopped up.  Oh, instant wonderful smells in the kitchen when those hit the hot bacon fat!  I let them cook until soft, about five minutes or so, and then I added 2 cloves of minced garlic, 1/2 a teaspoon of dried thyme, 1/2 a teaspoon of ground cumin, and 1/2 a teaspoon of smoked paprika.  I let that cook for a minute or so, and then I added some beans.

I had a container in the freezer of pink beans that I’d preciously cooked from dried, and then froze in their cooking liquid.  Total, it was about 3 cups of beans- so if you’re using canned beans, use the jumbo 28 ounce can, or two smaller cans.  Or cook the beans from fresh, but this was all about convenience and using what was on hand.  I use the beans plus their liquid- since I’d made them myself and knew it wasn’t loaded with sodium and preservatives.  Then I also added 1/2 a cup of beef broth and 1/2 a teaspoon of Worcestershire sauce, as well as some ground black pepper and a small pinch of salt.

Then I covered the pot, turned the heat to a simmer, and let this cook away for about half an hour or so while I cooked up a quick pot of plain white rice, and baked a batch of cornbread. We served the beans over the rice and added a dollop of real sour cream to the top.  This was so good, so homey and so comforting.  The cornbread took it into chuck-wagon food territory, and I’m sitting here wishing I actually had a little in the fridge yet. I suspect the beans would be equally delicious served up with some grits and a fried egg.

But you know what’s equally cool?  You can use this method to make beans, and change it up completely to suit your mood.  Only have white beans on hand?  Use them, and instead of thyme, use some dried rosemary, maybe add a little herbes de provence, and then use chicken or veggie broth instead of the beef.  You instantly have a little tuscan bean stew to serve however you like- maybe with some Italian sausages and polenta?  Say you have black beans on hand- oh, yum, add some chili powder with the cumin, use Mexican oregano instead of the thyme, and garnish with some cilantro and lime juice- simple Mexican black beans to accompany any fiesta dish, or use to stuff some burrito shells.

This is another one of those “recipes” that turned out delicious results with very little effort.  I literally used what I had on hand.  The only effort was a bit of veggie chopping, but essentially these beans cooked themselves.  The could have been ready in about 15 minutes using pre-cooked beans, but since I had rice to cook for 20 minutes, and cornbread to bake for 25, I gave it a nice long simmer on the stove.  The long simmer is completely optional, but these beans would be good any day of the year.  Perfect to accompany a summer barbecue, but equally perfect to warm your toes on a cold winters day. Definitely a must-make dish.