My daughter has been schooled in the ways of making the red beans and rice. Hooray for family traditions! We gathered all of our ingredients and began our lesson.

Of course, there’s the actual red beans, then there’s onion, garlic, bell pepper, celery, salt and pepper, and sausage. Later there’s rice (we prefer brown). I did the major prep of the veggies and let Miss Sadie do the “chopping into little bits” part. She needs some practice with her knife skills, but she’s getting there. And before you ask, my recipe is roughly this:

1 pound red kidney beans

1 medium onion, diced

1 medium bell pepper, diced

1 or 2 tablespoons chopped garlic

a few stalks of celery

some salt

some pepper

8 or so cups or water

some spicy stuff if you feel like it

1 or 2 pounds smoked sausage

Rice (eventually)

Put everything but the sausage and rice in a pressure cooker and cook for one hour after the jiggly thing starts jiggling. Hush up Alton Brown! It can work this way and you know it! After one hour, turn off the heat and let sit for awhile. When depressurized, open the pot. Add sliced sausage and a few more cups of water. Can you tell that I don’t really measure much of anything? Let simmer for as long as it takes to reach the thickness you like. My hubby and I like the red beans to be fairly thick. Meanwhile, cook your rice.

Serve with some cornbread, or buttered bread. Yummy stuff. Eat every Monday…I command you!

Ok, that’s it. Until next time,