mulberryshoots

Red beans and rice. Sounds pretty innocuous, right? Wrong. I decided to make it for supper tonight, mostly following a NYTimes recipe and suggestions. Apparently, it’s a specialty dish from New Orleans or Louisiana, that is.

I was surprised to learn that one of the ingredients is Cajun smoked Andouille sausage (which I found at Shaw’s!) It also requires soaking, boiling the red beans (organic, of course, not canned!) and cooking for two hours, mashing the beans at the end to thicken the pot. Alongside, rice is cooked and served in a bowl with the red beans on top.

To be honest, I wasn’t too sure about this dish as I scraped some of the green pepper out of the pot – thinking there was too much of it, and letting it cook for the allotted time. We’re about to have it for dinner tonight – late for us, but George came back in the afternoon and had lunch after 2 pm. So, I thought we’d have a leisurely Saturday night supper.

After dinner: You can knock me over with a feather! –the red bean mix on top of freshly cooked rice was SO GOOD!! There were complex flavors, enough salt and not too salty – the warm rice was the perfect foil for the red beans

In addition, I made a small apple coleslaw as a complement to the spicy sausage dish – cut up a honey crisp apple to a cole slaw mix with caeser dressing, apple cider vinegar and honey mixed together with it. Slightly sweet and cool and very tasty! WHEW!! I’m a fan now and already thinking about cooking up another batch of rice to go with the red bean leftovers!