Prov 31 Recipe: Healthy Red Beans & Rice

Healthy New Orleans Red Beans and Rice

Serves	16
Prep time	1 hour
Cook time	3 hours
Total time	4 hours
Meal type	Main Dish
Misc	Freezable, Serve Hot
Website	Girls Growing with God

The healthier version of a traditional recipe! Red Beans & Rice are a New Orleans tradition on Mondays. Monday was “laundry day” and a pot of beans cooking on the stove provided cooks the opportunity to wash clothes and put a good meal on the table. Today, you can put them on to cook and attend to vacuuming, Facebook, reading a good book…the possibilities are endless. This recipe makes enough for a month of Mondays!

Ingredients

large onion (chopped)
3 stalks Celery (chopped)
2lb red beans (small kidney beans) (rinsed and sorted)
14oz Smoked Turkey Sausage (sliced)
3 Bay leaves
4 teaspoons minced garlic
2 teaspoons dried thyme
2 tablespoons Cajun spice mix
1 packet Swanson's Beef Flavor Boost

Note

We don't like the texture the turkey sausage has after soaking in the pot, so we discard it and serve it "vegetarian" or with a ham steak alongside, rather than the traditional sausage.

Directions

Step 1
	Assemble ingredients
Step 2
	“Sort” the beans – this is checking carefully through the beans for rocks, little clumps of dirt, and funky beans. Rinse the beans well in a colander. Add sorted and rinsed red beans to a 10 quart pot. Add approximately 8 cups water and cover. Bring to a boil for 2 minutes. Then, keeping covered, remove from heat for 1 hour. Beans will absorb most of the water during this time.
Step 3
	Chop onion and celery. Slice sausage. Measure thyme, cajun spice mix, and minced garlic. Count out 3 Bay leaves. Set aside all ingredients until beans have soaked for 1 hour.
Step 4
	Add all ingredients plus Flavor Boost packet and enough water to cover all.
Step 5
	Put lid on pot. Bring to a boil and then turn heat down to low and simmer for 2-3 hours, stirring occasionally until liquid has thickened to desired consistency. A gravy-like consistency is the traditionally preferred thickness.
Step 6
	Serve over brown rice with a green salad. Store remaining red beans in labeled (date and contents) 4-cup containers. Will make dinner for 4 people, 4 times. When reheating in microwave from the freezer, it may be necessary to add a little water. Now you can do more than laundry on Mondays!