Hello? Anyone still there? I'm sorry; I've been gone a looooong time. Life has been pretty busy. The busier it gets, the less I cook pretty food. Sad fact. BUT - I have been using my crockpot a LOT. Like at least twice a week. So I thought I'd share some red beans and rice with you. This is a family favorite, comfort food at its best. My kids will eat beans and rice without fail. They would eat it every night if I would allow. And it is so nice to come home to a meal that's ready to go and waiting on you.
You actually start this the night before you cook it. Open up your beans, rinse them and put them in a pot. Cover the beans with water. Make sure there's a lot of water in there (at least 2-3 inches over the top of the beans). Put the lid on the pot and leave it just like that on the counter over night. This softens the beans so you'll get a better consistency when you cook them.
When you wake up drain your beans in a collander, rinse them (I'm told this removes the gas from the beans) and put them in your crock pot.
Add your liquid. Best case senario is stock. If you don't have any, you can use water. If I use water, I usually add bullion or brown gravy mix.
Add onions, garlic, bell pepper (you can buy this pre chopped, or chop them the night before when you put your beans soaking) and seasoning.
You can either add your sausage straight from the fridge, or cook it first. I've done it both ways with no complaints from the crowd. It really depends on how much time you have. I prefer the taste and texture of browning it on the stove first, but some days I'm short on time and I throw it in the crock pot without even bothering to cut it.
That's really all there is to it. Put the lid on your crock pot and let it do it's thing.
Serve over rice (which can also be made the night before if you know you'll have a hungry crew when you walk in the door).
As far as weekday thrills go, I'm not sure there are many things that make me happier than coming home to dinner already cooked and waiting on me. But since I don't have a personal chef, this means my crock pot has become one of my best friends. Even though I'm usually not a morning person, I believe it is totally worth getting up 30-45 minutes early to get dinner in the crock pot and check that off my list for the day.
You probably could just throw all of this in your crock pot and turn it on with no problems, but I like to do a little stove top prep.
Here's what you need:
1 whole cut up chicken
Salt
2 Tbsp olive oil
2 cups chopped vegetables (usually onion, garlic, bell pepper and parsley)
1 (6oz) can tomato paste
2 cup chicken broth (divided)
1 package cherry or grape tomatoes
1/4 cup chopped basil leaves
Heat some olive oil in pan on stove over medium high heat, season your chicken. When the oil gets HOT, add chicken to brown a bit.
In the same pan you browned the chicken, add some more olive oil and the vegetable mix.
***A note about the vegetable mix - this is just onions, bell pepper, garlic and parsley pre-chopped. You can find it in the produce section. You can absolutely just chop your own. However, this doesn't sound like something I want to do at 6am, so I buy the pre-chopped.*** Cook until clear.
Add to crock pot.
Again, in the same pan used for the chicken, then the vegetables, add about half of the chicken stock (you just need enough to wet the pan and un-clump the tomato paste, think of this as a useful pre-rinsing of your pan) plus tomato paste. Using a spatula, scrape the good stuff off the bottom of the pan, and stir until the paste is no longer clumpy. Add this to the crock pot.
Add the rest of chicken stock, cherry tomatoes and basil leaves to crock pot. Oh. My. Wow. that looks yummy.
Put lid on the crock, set it and forget it. When you get home, your house will smell fantastic. Best of all, THIS will be waiting on you...
Now, everytime you start to panic over dinner for the rest of the day, you can calm yourself knowing it's already ready already. Which means you have time to do extra laundry, scrub bathrooms or something else equally as glamorous.
Have a great day - and go make friends with your crock pot!
Get the printable here.
Crock pot cooking works for me. Check out what works for everyone else!
