Red Beans and Rice Recipe

No photo but after soaking your beans drain them and fill a large pot with 6 cups chicken broth. If I do not have broth from cooking chicken pieces I use bouillon cubes. Today, I used 5 boullion cubes per 6 cups of water and it was fine. Add beans into broth. Bring to a boil then lower to a simmer. Add 3 bay leaves, two pinches of cayenne, and a tsp of minced garlic and let this continue to simmer while you prepare the rest of the ingredients in a skillet. Saute a chopped onion in about 1 tbsp bacon grease in a skillet. Remove onions from skillet into the pot of beans, reserving all the juices that you can.

Add another tbsp of bacon grease and 1 lb. chopped smoked sausage. Saute till slightly browned. Remove sausage from pan and put aside.

Pour 1 cup of water in the skillet with all the juices from the onions and sausage and deglaze the pan. I pour about 1/2 cup of the water then scrape and stir it, then I add the other 1/2 cup of water and stir some more. Pour all this good juice in the pot with your beans. This is most of your flavor so do not skip this! ( Do not put sausage into beans at this point)

Let the beans simmer for two hours, stirring occasionally. I simmer with the top on for the first 1 1/2 hours. Add the sausage to the pot and simmer, uncovered, for 30 minutes. Cook rice in another pot. While rice is cooking remove about 3/4 cup beans to a bowl and mash the beans with the back of a spoon. Put mashed beans back into pot and let simmer during rice cooking time. This will thicken the juices in the beans.

This is so good with some cornbread or Jiffy muffins.

Cost breakdown:

bag of red beans$.99

1 lb Hillshire smoked sausage $2.50

2 cups rice $.33

1 onion ($1.99 bag with about 6 onions) $.33

spices $.50

Total= $4.65