Creole Red Beans & Rice
makes 8 servings
prep: 20 min, cook 3 hr, other 8 hr
1 16 oz bag dried red kidney beans
1 lb smoked sausage, thinly sliced
2 T vegetable oil
3 celery ribs, sliced
1 green bell pepper, chopped
1 large onion, chopped 3 green onions, chopped
3 garlic cloves, minced
1 14.5 oz can diced tomatoes
1 32 oz container chicken broth
3 1/2 C water
2 bay leaves
1 T Worcestershire sauce
1 t sugar
1/2 t salt
1/2 t pepper
1/8 t ground red pepper
Hot cooked rice
Rinse & sort beans according to package directions. Place into Dutch oven. Add water 2 inches above beans and let soak 8 hours. Drain beans, rinse, drain, rinse. Set aside.
Saute sausage in hot oil in Dutch oven over medium heat 5-7 minutes. Drain on paper towels, reserving drippings. Refrigerate sausage until ready to stir into bean mixture.
Add celery, bell pepper, green onions & garlic to drippings and saute about 5 minutes. Add tomatoes and simmer 5 minutes. Stir in beans, broth, water, bay leaves, Worcestershire sauce, sugar, salt, pepper and red pepper.
Increase heat to medium-high and bring to a boil. Boil 10 minutes then reduce heat to medium, stirring occasionally for 2 hours or until beans are tender. Stir in sausage, disgard bay leaves and serve over hot rice.
*note* Don't spill this in your car or it will stink for days. I would've omitted the celery, bay leaves, Worcestershire sauce and garlic. Substitute red beans for pinto beans, ham hock for sausage, omit bell pepper, add 3 T apricot preserves and serve over fried potatoes and cornbread. THAT'S how we make beans in Oklahoma, ya'll!
Apple Spice Cake w/Caremel Glaze
1 store-bought package spice cake mix without pudding
4 large eggs
1/2 C veggie oil
1 C apple juice
1 pkg butterscotch instant pudding
1 C firmly packed brown sugar
1/2 C butter
1/2 C evaporated milk
1 t vanilla extract
Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
Combine first 5 ingredients in large bowl. Beat at medium speed for 2 minutes. Pour into greased & floured 13" x 9" pan.
Bake at 350 for 35 minutes. Cool for 30 minutes.
While cake is cooling, make caramel glaze. Comine brown sugar, butter and evaporated milk in sauce pan. Bring to boil. Boil 3 minutes, stirring constantly. Remove from heat. Stir in vanilla. Let cool before pouring on cake.
*note*
You can also grate 1/2 cup granny smith apples and add to the cake batter. I doubled the caramel recipe and poked holes in the cake for the glaze to get down into. This is a messy, oozy, awesome cake. It's for taste, not for show.
Tuesday, September 8, 2009
Thursday, September 3, 2009
Day 1 Final Report
Ugh. The red beans & rice might have had a better texture if I'd cooked them on the stove, but having done it in the crock pot, the dish was not good.
The cake, ugly as it was, was fantastic. I'll post both recipes later, with my recommendations for making them better.
~Paula
9/4/09 update: The guys at work at the beans...and liked them. I'm considering dish #1 a failure, because the beans didn't have the texture I wanted. Dish #2, the apple spice cake, was a success.
Creole Red Beans & Rice
makes 8 servings
prep: 20 min, cook 3 hr, other 8 hr
1 16 oz bag dried red kidney beans
1 lb smoked sausage, thinly sliced
2 T vegetable oil
3 celery ribs, sliced
1 green bell pepper, chopped
1 large onion, chopped
3 green onions, chopped
3 garlic cloves, minced
1 14.5 oz can diced tomatoes
1 32 oz container chicken broth
3 1/2 C water
2 bay leaves
1 T Worcestershire sauce
1 t sugar
1/2 t salt
1/2 t pepper
1/8 t ground red pepper
Hot cooked rice
Rinse & sort beans according to package directions. Place into Dutch oven. Add water 2 inches above beans and let soak 8 hours. Drain beans, rinse, drain, rinse. Set aside.
Saute sausage in hot oil in Dutch oven over medium heat 5-7 minutes. Drain on paper towels, reserving drippings. Refrigerate sausage until ready to stir into bean mixture.
Add celery, bell pepper, green onions & garlic to drippings and saute about 5 minutes. Add tomatoes and simmer 5 minutes.
Stir in beans, broth, water, bay leaves, Worcestershire sauce, sugar, salt, pepper and red pepper. Increase heat to medium-high and bring to a boil. Boil 10 minutes then reduce heat to medium, stirring occasionally for 2 hours or until beans are tender.
Stir in sausage, disgard bay leaves and serve over hot rice.
*note* Don't spill this in your car or it will stink for days. I would've omitted the celery, bay leaves, Worcestershire sauce and garlic. Substitute red beans for pinto beans, ham hock for sausage, omit bell pepper, add 3 T apricot preserves and serve over fried potatoes and cornbread. THAT'S how we make beans in Oklahoma, ya'll!
The cake, ugly as it was, was fantastic. I'll post both recipes later, with my recommendations for making them better.
~Paula
9/4/09 update: The guys at work at the beans...and liked them. I'm considering dish #1 a failure, because the beans didn't have the texture I wanted. Dish #2, the apple spice cake, was a success.
Creole Red Beans & Rice
makes 8 servings
prep: 20 min, cook 3 hr, other 8 hr
1 16 oz bag dried red kidney beans
1 lb smoked sausage, thinly sliced
2 T vegetable oil
3 celery ribs, sliced
1 green bell pepper, chopped
1 large onion, chopped
3 green onions, chopped
3 garlic cloves, minced
1 14.5 oz can diced tomatoes
1 32 oz container chicken broth
3 1/2 C water
2 bay leaves
1 T Worcestershire sauce
1 t sugar
1/2 t salt
1/2 t pepper
1/8 t ground red pepper
Hot cooked rice
Rinse & sort beans according to package directions. Place into Dutch oven. Add water 2 inches above beans and let soak 8 hours. Drain beans, rinse, drain, rinse. Set aside.
Saute sausage in hot oil in Dutch oven over medium heat 5-7 minutes. Drain on paper towels, reserving drippings. Refrigerate sausage until ready to stir into bean mixture.
Add celery, bell pepper, green onions & garlic to drippings and saute about 5 minutes. Add tomatoes and simmer 5 minutes.
Stir in beans, broth, water, bay leaves, Worcestershire sauce, sugar, salt, pepper and red pepper. Increase heat to medium-high and bring to a boil. Boil 10 minutes then reduce heat to medium, stirring occasionally for 2 hours or until beans are tender.
Stir in sausage, disgard bay leaves and serve over hot rice.
*note* Don't spill this in your car or it will stink for days. I would've omitted the celery, bay leaves, Worcestershire sauce and garlic. Substitute red beans for pinto beans, ham hock for sausage, omit bell pepper, add 3 T apricot preserves and serve over fried potatoes and cornbread. THAT'S how we make beans in Oklahoma, ya'll!
Crunchy Beans?
Last night I started my first two recipes: red beans & rice and apple spice cake with caramel frosting. Everything started out just fine...until I re-checked the recipe and realized I was supposed to use red kidney beans, not red pinto beans. This resulted in a 10:45 p.m. emergency trip to Wal-Mart. I lost 3 hours of bean-soaking time, and now it's an hour and fifteen minutes before lunch and the beans are still crunchy. Grrrr. Sorry guys, no RB&R for lunch today.
One way I'm having to detour from SL's instructions is by using a crock pot. I loaded up the ingredients (which seems heavy on the garlic, by the way) and put them in my little crock pot so this science experiment could cook while I work. I spilled a little in my car, which torks me off yet doesn't surprise me. I'm a klutz delux. Anyway, now my car smells like garlic. Nice.
My only experience tasting red beans & rice has been at Pearl's, and so far these neither smell or look like the beans at Pearl's. I'll just roll with it, though.
I'm a fairly accomplished baker, so the cake was a breeze. I used cheap cake mix (yep...Southern Living says to use a mix, which doesn't seem very Southern to me) and store-bought eggs, but it turned out just fine. I doubled the amount of caramel glaze it required, because if there's one thing I love, it's caramel. The recipe called for baking it in a 9" x 13" pan, so it's not pretty. I unintentionally uglied it further by covering it with foil last night. When I pulled off the foil, I scalped parts of the cake, pulling off the glaze and leaving big bald spots.
Once the beans are finished (hopefully before quitting time), I'll post my guinea pigs' (aka the technicians at Climate Control) critiques.
FYI if you happen to have this cookbook, note that I'm not following the recipes in order. I'm a procrastinator, and am saving the foods I don't like (i.e., shellfish) for last. Some of you would likely get them overwith as soon as possible, but that's now how I operate.
Okay more later. Happy Thursday, folks.
One way I'm having to detour from SL's instructions is by using a crock pot. I loaded up the ingredients (which seems heavy on the garlic, by the way) and put them in my little crock pot so this science experiment could cook while I work. I spilled a little in my car, which torks me off yet doesn't surprise me. I'm a klutz delux. Anyway, now my car smells like garlic. Nice.
My only experience tasting red beans & rice has been at Pearl's, and so far these neither smell or look like the beans at Pearl's. I'll just roll with it, though.
I'm a fairly accomplished baker, so the cake was a breeze. I used cheap cake mix (yep...Southern Living says to use a mix, which doesn't seem very Southern to me) and store-bought eggs, but it turned out just fine. I doubled the amount of caramel glaze it required, because if there's one thing I love, it's caramel. The recipe called for baking it in a 9" x 13" pan, so it's not pretty. I unintentionally uglied it further by covering it with foil last night. When I pulled off the foil, I scalped parts of the cake, pulling off the glaze and leaving big bald spots.
Once the beans are finished (hopefully before quitting time), I'll post my guinea pigs' (aka the technicians at Climate Control) critiques.
FYI if you happen to have this cookbook, note that I'm not following the recipes in order. I'm a procrastinator, and am saving the foods I don't like (i.e., shellfish) for last. Some of you would likely get them overwith as soon as possible, but that's now how I operate.
Okay more later. Happy Thursday, folks.
Wednesday, September 2, 2009
The Beginning
Hi, I'm Paula. If you're reading this, you probably know me. If not, glad to, er, meet you. Now that the niceties are done, here's the story:
I FINALLY made my way through Julie & Julia - the book - not the blog (I will do that sometime, though). It took forever because, I'm sorry, Julie was not someone I really liked reading about. However, I loved her idea of cooking her way through a cookbook and blogging about it.
Julie cooked to find herself. I'm cooking because 1.) I need to learn to cook and 2.) I just moved to Duncan, Oklahoma, and am a little bored. I need a hobby. Plus I'm curious if I can actually stick with something for an entire year.
So, to feed my need, I'm totally copy-catting Julie's idea. I have no desire to cook French food (I'm still angry at the French for not supporting our fight against terrorism...plus the food sounds atrocious), so I'm going to meander my way through the "Southern Living Homestyle Cookbook." I'll even post the recipes. Maybe.
According to the cover, there are "more than 400 mouth-watering, made-with-love recipes." We'll see how much love is left in me when I have to fry a turkey. Will I make it through the 400+ recipes before September 1, 2010? It'll be a nail-biter.
The first chapter is Southern heritage treasures. My first endeavor, to be made tonight, will be Creole red beans & rice. I'm liking this project already.
~Paula
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