Tuesday, November 14, 2006

Cajun Red Beans and Rice

This recipe was posted Jennifer C. on the Healthy Vegetarian Crockpot Cooking yahoo group last week. It was very easy and very delicious. I've put my substitutions in parenthesis. As always, most of my substitutions are based on using what I have in the house rather than making a trip out to the store.

Cajun Red Beans and Rice

1 pound small red beans
1 tablespoon boullion (1 Tbs All Season Blend from The Ultimate Uncheese Cookbook by Joanne Stepaniak)
2 tablespoons Cajun seasoning
Several dashes of hot sauce (I skipped this and let everyone add their own)
2-3 bay leaves
2 small onions
1 green bell pepper (finely shredded kale)
5-6 stalks celery (1 celeriac and some chopped collard stems)
2-3 cloves garlic
Salt
About 6-7 cups of water (I used boiling water because I was nervous the beans wouldn't cook up by dinner time).

Serve with:
fresh parsley, minced
prepared brown rice

Dice the veggies very finely. Throw everything into a pot and let it
simmer for several hours (or throw everything into a crockpot and let
it cook 7-8 hours). Once the beans are very tender, remove several
scoops of them and purée them to make a paste. Or just put them in a
bowl and mash the heck out of them. Stir them back into the pot. Serve with brown rice and fresh parsley.

I cooked this in the slow cooker and didn't bother to mash or puree the beans. The result was a yummy dinner with minimal effort. If you're wondering why I used kale in place of the pepper but collard stems in place of the celery, it was because I had already used the leaves from the collards in something else and the stems were just sitting their in the fridge. I also find that collard stems work best in a long cooking recipe since they tend to be tougher than kale stems.

Last night I discovered that one of the teenage girls I recently hired is a veggie also! Isn't that a happy coincidence.

5 comments:

Ruthie said...

Katie--

I love meeting other people who are vegetarian. It's like you can relate to them on so many levels! :)

I found this link I thought you'd like:

http://www.all-creatures.org/recipes.html

Ruthie

Barbara said...

Katie:

Re frozen bread, yes, I make two loaves, but it takes us a few days to eat a loaf (just two adults here) so I freeze one. I wrap it in plastic wrap and then tinfoil. Comes out fine.

Katie said...

Ruthie,
That website looked so familiar and then I realized they belong to our local vegetarian society! Small world, isn't it?

Barbara,
It freezes well too?? Is there be no end to the miracle of this soft, yummy, freezable, whole wheat bread?!

Anonymous said...

The beans don't need to soak?

Just want to confirm, I'm always nervous about recipes that call for dry beans but don't say to soak them first.

Katie said...

I didn't soak the beans for this one, although you certainly could. I've found using boiling water can help decrease the need for soaking in some recipes.

The only thing in this recipe that has potential to make the beans take a long time is the salt in the Cajun seasoning. The solution to that is to either use a salt free Cajun seasoning or add the Cajun seasoning after the beans have already softened.