I'm trying to start cooking so we can save money, lose weight and be healthier.
Finished Beans Picture from my iPhone
So Recipe:
Ingredients
-6 quart oval crock pot
-1 awesome Mother-in-law with recipe
-Water
-2 pound bag of Red Beans (Camellia is the brand everyone around here uses)
-Tony Chachere's
-1 small white Onion (I used about 2/3 of a large onion we had)
-2-3 stalks of Celery (or celery seed because you do not have any celery and realize after you started the crock pot that you have celery seed on your spice rack so you add a little)
-3 bay leaves
-@ 4 to 8 cloves of garlic
-1 link of your favorite sausage (I used Hillshire Farm Turkey Sausage)
Directions
1. Sort through the beans. Apparently there could be rocks or something mixed in with the beans. I didn't find any rocks and my Husband would have used all the beans, but I did take out a few that were funky looking. I sat on my couch and poured the beans out on one of our TV Trays. I put the sorted beans in a colander.
2. Rinse the sorted beans. Some of the beans may be dirty so this helps to clean them. I put the sorted beans in a colander and ran water over them while moving the beans around in the colander.
3. Soak the Beans. After rinsing the beans, put the beans into the crock pot stoneware. Then cover with water until the crock pot is about two-thirds full. Add some Tony's, however much your preference is. I stirred this, just because it made me feel better, I doubt you have to stir. I also put the cover on. Let this sit over night on your kitchen counter.
4. The next morning (9 or 10 am if you are me), drain the beans. You can use your colander or just use your husband and your hands so all the water comes out the pot.
5. Chop the vegetables. I used our Cuisinart Smart Stick Hand Blender chopping attachment that we got for the wedding. (I'm not an advertisement, I just always wonder what other people use, so I'm going to put that in here) First I chopped the veggies into small enough pieces to fit in the chopper then I put the pieces in the chopper. This chopper is pretty powerful so it only takes a few presses for it to be chopped into little pieces. If you are chopping by hand, cut into really small pieces - I guess dice - because people don't like to see the seasoning in their beans.
6. Add the chopped onions, garlic and celery (if you have it) to the beans. Do not chop the bay leaves, put them in whole.
7. Add water so that the pot is 2/3 full.
8. Add more Tony's. Mother-in-law said to add a little bit, but after ours sat overnight, my husband and I were worried that they would be over seasoned so we added like a dash of Tony's. I think we could have added more, but I found that the beans were well seasoned.
8. Cook on low for at least 8 hours. Mother-in-law said that she cooked hers for more like 10, but mine were cooked for 8 and the beans were cooked well - very soft - and not mushy. This was also the first time I used the crock pot so that could also be the difference in the times.
9. Cut up your sausage and add after the beans are finished cooking. Sausage apparently is usually pre-cooked and you just need to warm it up. My crock pot has a Warm setting, so I added the sausage after the beans were finished and the crock pot was on Warm. I let it sit for about an hour and the sausage was hot.
10. Add over rice and enjoy!
Verdict: Like I said the beans were cooked well but weren't mushy which is how they should be. My husband thought they were cooked well, but thought maybe I could have added less water so that it wouldn't be runny. I didn't find them very runny. He added pepper, but he loves pepper and a lot of people add hot sauce to their red beans anyway. I ate it like it was and thought it had a good flavor. We had a lot of left overs. We ate this again later on in the week, and freezed one container and still have another in the fridge. So if you are just two, you might want to invite people over or plan to freeze some. Red beans are something that age well, so you can eat them later one and the flavor will be intact!
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