The challenge for Week 1 was beans. When the theme came up, I had just finished reorganizing the pantry (again) and come across a just-past-date bag of dry kidney beans, so obviously I had to use those so they wouldn't go to waste (and I had no plans for them, had just bought them because they were a good price). A quick search for kidney bean recipes came up with a lot of results for red beans and rice, which meant we could also explore Louisiana for the AtWCC!
Red beans and rice was traditionally made in Louisiana on Mondays, using bones left over from Sunday dinner on a day when there would be plenty of time to let the dish cook (apparently Mondays were wash days). I chose to follow a recipe I found on Allrecipes even though it did not use bones, since a lot of people claimed it tasted authentic, and planned to make it our Christmas Eve dinner (challenges announced a few weeks in advance), since we were staying in and would have time to soak and cook the beans all day.
The first step was to soak the beans overnight. Despite setting multiple reminders for myself, I almost forgot before going to bed until A reminded me. You can make the beans without soaking them, but it takes longer. You also have to make sure to fully cook kidney beans, because otherwise they could be toxic and no one wants that. Having never used dry kidney beans before, I really wanted to soak them for the best chance of success.
I sautéed some onions, green peppers, and celery, the holy trinity of Cajun and Creole cuisine, with some garlic, and then added them to the pot with the (drained and rinsed) beans along with some chicken broth and a whole bunch of seasonings, including bay leaves, parsley, thyme, oregano, garlic powder, paprika, cayenne (only a little so it wouldn't be too spicy for B), and sage. The recipe said to let it simmer for 2.5 hours (with some periodic stirring) before adding in the sliced Andouille sausage, but I probably added that in closer to the 2-hour mark. I think our burner runs hot, so I may have had the simmering temperature too high, because the beans were already soft enough to cut in half with a silicone spatula after about 40 minutes. I lowered it even more and did let it keep simmering to make sure they would be soft enough (and not toxic). When I tried it, I found that the skins were a little tougher and not as soft as I thought they would be after 2 hours, but maybe I needed to cook it lower and longer, or maybe they just weren't the highest quality beans.
The end result though was delicious, and it reminded us of red beans and rice we've had before, so it felt like we were giving B a real taste of Louisiana cuisine at home (the whole point of the AtWCC). The flavorings felt spot-on. We weren't sure if he would go for it considering the stew-like texture and sauce, but to our surprise, he loved it (other than a couple slightly too spicy pieces of sausage). The approximate cost for the red beans and rice was $12.89, which isn't that bad considering we had enough leftovers for part of dinner for another day. Week 1 was a success!
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