Red Beans and Rice

Though we will be able to buy most everything we need in Scotland, there are a few food staples that can be hard to find. In fact, when I asked my Mom what we need to put in our shipment, the first thing she listed was Rotel tomatoes. According to my mom, other weirdly scare items include chocolate chips, pre-packaged cake mix, and peanut butter.

When I spotted these Camellia Red Beans in Target, I loaded a few in my basket, figuring it’s a safe bet that if I can’t find chocolate chips in Aberdeen, I surely won’t be able to find these beans from Harahan, Louisiana. I have a hard enough time finding them in Texas and was actually planning on stopping by Albertson’s on our Louisiana trip this weekend to pick up a few packs. Well at least that’s one more thing I can go ahead and cross off my list. Now I just need to buy a year’s supply of Rotel and I’ll basically have all the fixings for Red Beans and Rice. Mmmmm….I bet some red beans and rice would taste mighty good on a chilly Scottish day.

As a bonus for reading the blog today, I’ll let you in on an authentic Louisiana family recipe for Crockpot Red Beans and Rice. I promise you it is the easiest recipe you have ever made. Like most of my favorites, it only contains 6 ingredients and requires minimal supervision. The beans do require 24 hours of soaking before cooking, so it requires just a teeny bit of foresight. Here’s what you’ll need:

Ingredients:

1 package of red kidney beans (I suggest Camellia if you can find them)

3 or 4 bay leaves

1 can Rotel tomatoes

Tony Chachere’s or other Cajun seasoning

Sausage

Rice

Directions:

1.       Soak red beans in water for 24 hours. You may have to keep adding a bit of water throughout the day.

2.       In the morning, add Tony’s seasoning (about 2 tsp initially and you can add more throughout the day if you think it needs more kick), a can of Rotel, and 3-4 crumpled up bay leaves.

3.       Cook in the crockpot on high for the next 6-8 hours, stirring occasionally. Add seasoning as preferred.

4.       An hour before serving, slice sausage and place in crock pot and continue cooking on high for 1 hour.

5.       Serve over rice.

6.       Thank the Lord for southern food. Amen.

It is so simple, truly delicious, and not unhealthy. What more could you want from a meal?

For extra credit, you could also make this super easy cornbread:

Ingredients:

1 package Jiffy Cornbread mix (milk and eggs required for prep)

1 can rotel

Directions: Prepare jiffy cornbread mixture as directed on box. Drain a can of Rotel and add tomatoes to jiffy mix. Bake as directed. I prefer making cornbread muffins so I bake mine in a cupcake pan. To each his own. No judgment from me if you prefer a loaf of cornbread to cornbread muffins (weirdo).  

To all of my friends who have been impressed by my authentic Red Beans and Rice before, now you know my secret that it’s actually embarrassingly easy to make. I hope you enjoy cooking like an authentically lazy Louisianan.

For now, I’m off to visit my homeland and enjoy friends, family and crawfish. I’ll be back Monday with the weekly progress report. Have a great weekend!

In Review: February

Since it’s the last day of February and I’m trying to do anything to distract from the fact that we still haven’t heard about Jonathan’s job change, I figured I would briefly review my accomplishments for the month of February.

Travels: Ski trip to Breckenridge Colorado.

Recipes: Two new easy and scrumptious recipes have been added to my arsenal: Greek Pastitsio Casserole and Chicken Tortilla Soup.

Reading: I read 3.5 books this month: The Girls from Ames, The Paris Wife, and Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children. I’m  currently stuck halfway through Swamplandia! By Karen Russel and I just can’t seem to get hooked. I’ll give it a few more days before giving up, but if I’m still not intrigued, I will move on to March’s reading list of Cutting for Stone by Abraham Verghese and Beach Music by Pat Conroy .

Writing: As for my writing goal of 20,000 words per month, that’s been a pretty colossal failure. I have been writing a blog post every weekday which has helped my word count and my blog, but being as though blog posts average about 400 words per post, this doesn’t keep me on track for such a lofty goal. Plus, it reminds me every day that my life is not that interesting and I have the feeling the continuing to blog at this rate is a bit of a stretch. I don’t know how long I can keep it up, especially since I’m running up against a particularly nasty case of writer’s block.

Once I shake off my funk and start working on some short story/novel/essay ideas I have, I think 20,000 words per month might be more realistic. I just don’t want to start in my current uninspired state of mind. That’s my excuse this week anyhow.  With twelve hours left in the month, I’ve currently written in the ball park of 13,000 words. All in all, I’d call it a pretty good month.

King Cake

Yes, I had to be apart from my sweetheart on Valentine’s Day, but I consider that a small sacrifice in exchange for some authentic Louisiana King Cake. I won’t make any comments about how good this particular King Cake was or was not, but let’s just say that Covington has nothing on Lafayette in the King Cake baking department.

However, Jonathan didn’t go to Lafayette on business and since beggars can’t be choosers, I may or may not have eaten 3 pieces so far. God Bless Mardi Gras.

Happy Valentine's Day

Last week I found a simple and cute recipe for Valentine ’s Day treats that I wanted to try. I knew instantly that it had the makings of a winning recipe because it a) had only 3 ingredients and b) involved melting chocolate. The three ingredients are square pretzels, Hershey’s hugs and valentine’s colored m&ms. Now I also love recipes like this because there are innumerous combinations to try. For instance, you could easily use dark chocolate Hershey’s with peanut m&ms. Or milk chocolate Hershey’s with plain m&ms.
Making them was seriously easy and therapeutic. I just turned on a Dave Matthews and Tim Reynolds concert on TV and went to work. First you line a cookie sheet with wax paper and line up your square pretzels. Since I’m a perfectionist, I only used the unbroken pretzel pieces which meant Samson and Bailey reaped the benefits of this particular neurosis by eating broken pretzels for dinner. Once the pretzels are lined up start topping each of them with a Hershey’s hugs/kiss. While you’re doing this, preheat your oven to 200 degrees. Put the pretzels into the oven for 5 minutes. You don’t want the kisses to completely melt and they should still maintain some of their shape. Once they are out of the oven, smoosh the chocolate down by placing an m&m in the center.

Place the concoction in the fridge for about 10 minutes until they cool and then place in an airtight container. Viola: easy, adorable, delicious Valentine’s Day treats. You’re welcome, coworkers!

And of course, these could easily be adapted to Christmas, St. Patrick’s Day, Easter, Mardi Gras, etc. simply by switching up the colors. See, endless possibilities!

Quinoa Stuffed Bell-peppers

I am a moderately healthy person. I exercise daily, make mostly nutritious decisions, drink enough water, and stay a healthy weight. But I am in no means a health nut. I enjoy my afternoon diet soda and eat way too much candy.

Lately I’ve been thinking about the psychology of eating, and how the eating habits we develop in childhood really impact the rest of our lives. Jonathan and I grew up in the deep south (aka highest obesity rates in the country), and worse, he grew up in a house with 4 boys and 1 man. Meat with a side of starch are the cornerstones of all of his favorite childhood meals.

My problem was that I was always underweight and a super picky eater therefore my parents were always encouraging me to eat high calorie foods, especially carbs since I was an avid athlete. They praised me when I asked for second helpings and let me eat essentially whatever I wanted. This mainly consisted of mac and cheese, cheese pizza, spaghettios, and fish sticks. When I went to college, my palate diversified and my appetite surged. Unfortunately this change incidentally coincided with the end of my soccer career.
I didn’t quite put on the “freshman fifteen” but I had to learn to adapt. My solution was running. I figured if I ran 7 miles a day, I wouldn’t have to change my eating habits. That was true, until recently. I still exercise every day, but with a full time job and weird hours, sometimes I just don’t have the time or energy for a good workout. It’s much easier and time efficient to cut some calories rather than add some cardio.
I’ll never be a vegetarian, much less a vegan, but I do strive to cut meat out as the focal point to every meal and to go meatless a few days a week. It’s harder than it seems to get away from a habit so ingrained, especially when every recipe in your repertoire includes a huge serving of meat. Even my vegetable soup has 2 lbs of stew meat in the recipe.
Recently, my sister (who is an actual health nut) introduced me to quinoa.
Quinoa is a grain-like seed similar to couscous. It’s an excellent source of protein and fiber, and a tasty meat substitute. Last weekend I made quinoa stuffed peppers and it was so deliciously guilt free and filling! Quinoa is also very versatile. I’ve found recipes for quinoa oatmeal , quinoa salads, and quinoa burgers. I try to eat protein but as a runner, I never feel like it fills me up and I’m always craving carbs instead. Quinoa is different and super filling. One stuffed bell-pepper for dinner (which is only about 250 calories) keeps me full until bedtime which allows me to skip my usually pre-bedtime snack (see, totally unhealthy habits!) Here is the recipe I used adapted from this blog , though you can definitely customize the ingredients to your tastes. For instance, my sister adds pesto sauce instead of cheese to the top of her bell-peppers, probably because she’s a total health nut.
Quinoa Stuffed Bell-peppers

Ingredients:
1 medium onion, chopped,
2TB of olive oil
½ cup of chopped celery
1 ½ cups of shredded carrots (about 3 carrots will do it; unless your husband does the grocery shopping, and then it takes about 20 baby carrots)
1 TB ground cumin
2 tsp minced garlic
1 10 oz package of frozen spinach thawed and squeezed dry
1 15 oz can of diced tomatoes- drain, but reserve liquid separately
1 15 oz can of black beans, drained
1 ½ cups of shredded pepper jack cheese
¾ cups Quinoa
4 bell peppers- I like to get one of each color

Directions:
1. Start off my sautéing onions and celery in oil for about 5 minutes. Add in cumin and garlic and heat for one minute before adding drained tomatoes and spinach. Cook this mixture for 5 minutes until all the liquid has drained.
2. Stir in carrots, black beans, and uncooked quinoa. Add 2 cups of water to mixture, cover and bring to a boil. Once it reaches a boil, reduce heat and let simmer for 20 minutes, or until quinoa is tender. At this point, mix in 1 cup of pepper jack cheese.
3. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Cut your bell-peppers in half from top-to-bottom (lengthways) and de-seed and de-rib them. Pour your tomato juice in the bottom of a large baking pan (I used my lasagna pan). Stuff bell-peppers with quinoa and veggie mixture. Cover baking pan with foil and cook for one hour.
4. Top each bell-pepper with a sprinkle of cheese and cook for 15 more minutes. Let cool for 10 minutes before eating. Trust me on this one.

Total prep + cook time is about 2 hours for this. However, the long baking time allows for kitchen clean up in the meantime. And this recipe makes about 8-10 servings and it’s really good for freezing. I’d recommend even doubling the recipe and freezing ¾ of it. Once you have the mixture, its super easy to just buy some bell-peppers, thaw out a few servings and pop it in the oven for an hour and 15 minutes. Voila, healthy vegetarian dinner.

And if you’ve been living under the same health –food ignoramus rock that I have, here is some additional information on cooking quinoa.
(Breakfast Quinoa)

Best Day Ever Hall of Fame

I mentioned earlier that Saturday was among one of my best days ever. Good enough to deserve it's own blog post. Well here it is. I woke up early to snag a 7 mile run before my morning facial. Then, it was off to the Houston Zoo. I’ve been waiting to go to the Zoo since we moved here a year ago, but our schedules or the weather just hadn’t cooperated until this weekend. It was such a great date. Seriously, is there anything more romantic than Elephant babies, Red Pandas, and Orangutans? I think not. When we first entered the Zoo we were faced with the impossible decision of what to see first. There were tons of signs with tempting little tidbits like ‘Big Cats’, ‘African Safari’, ‘Reptiles’, ‘Primates’ and of course ‘Hoofed Animals’(Because really, what is a Zoo without a ‘Hoofed Animals’ exhibit?). Jonathan instantly declared that he didn’t even really like Hoofed Animals so we skipped them and headed straight for the big cats. And that’s where we found Jonathan’s animal kingdom soul mate, conveniently also named Jonathan.

Jonathan the lion is described as “vocal, attention seeking, expert nap-taker”. Hmmm…

Actually, the resemblance is quite striking.

While the Big Cats slept, we made our way to the Primates. I am always astonished by the Chimpanzees and how human-like they are. Two of them were entertaining the kids by clapping their feet, beating on the glass, jumping up and down and LAUGHING. Their distinct personalities and individualism were amazing to watch. For instance, not all Chimpanzees are extroverts craving attention. In fact, Jonathan wasn’t the only one with a doppelganger at the Houston Zoo.

Nope, we spotted my twin as well, off in a corner, snuggled in a blanket, just trying to get some peace and quiet. I was seriously waiting for her to plop in a Gilmore Girls DVD and settle in for an afternoon nap.

But of course, the crowning moment of our Zoo experience was feeding the giraffes. Here I am, living the dream, feeding lettuce to Miles.

And if the day had ended there it would have been complete, but there was much more perfection to come. After feeding Miles, we also felt hungry and so went for lunch at Brown Bag Deli in Rice Village. I just love their tuna salad sandwiches, mostly for their buttery honey-wheat rolls. Yum! And since we were already in Rice Village, we might as well do some shopping right? After loading up on MAC cosmetics, we headed home for a power nap. Then it was off to Thairapy where I enjoyed a scalp massage and haircut. Pure bliss.

Since I got my hair did, I wanted to go out on the town. I threw on my new favorite purple dress and we headed to our favorite Belgian Restaurant, The Broken Spoke. And yes, I realize the fact that we have a favorite Belgian restaurant makes us total hipsters.

But really, is there anything better than Belgian cuisine? Don’t answer that. It’s a rhetorical question. There is NOTHING better than Belgian cuisine, trust me on this one. World’s best beer? Check. World’s best chocolate? Check. World’s Best Fries? Check, check, check. Broken Spoke gives the people what they want.

They have something like 20 Belgian beers on tap. One of them, Delirium, actually holds the title for World’s Best Beer. And it’s on tap! They have a chalkboard listing all their featured draft beers, and they even include a few American beers at the bottom for non-hipster folk. We overheard a patron ask the waitress what was good on tap and she replied “Well, they are all good. Except for those at the bottom.” Amen, sister. We took Jonathan’s family there once and his brother ordered a Budweiser. Had I known that ahead of time, I may have chosen not to marry into that family. Just kidding…sorta.

Here I am in my new purple dress with my new haircut, double fisting Belgian fries and the World’s Best Beer.

That, my friends, is what I call a good day.