Monday Red Beans and Rice

Who doesn’t love Red Beans and Rice?  There is a tradition in Louisiana which involves serving red beans and rice on Mondays. This tradition is deeply ingrained in both the Cajun and Creole cultures.  Families used to cook all weekend long for the Sunday meal and Mondays were laundry day, so putting on a pot of beans was easy and delicious.  (Families were much larger back then too.)  I must confess, I don’t regularly cook beans on Mondays, but Monday is my laundry day. . . some traditions never go away.

• 1 lb. Camellia Red Kidney Beans
• 1 lb. Andouille sausage
• 8-10 cups water
• 1 medium onion, chopped
• 2 ribs celery, chopped
• 1 clove garlic, minced
• 1 bay leaf
• 2-tablespoons parsley, chopped
• 1 teaspoon Cajun seasoning
• cayenne pepper to taste, optional
• Salt and Pepper to taste – taste before adding salt
• Freshly cooked hot fluffy rice, cooked separately

Pre-Soak Beans.  This makes the beans creamy.

• Boil beans in water for 3 minutes in a heavy pot.
• Cover and set aside for 2 hours.
• Drain and discard the water.

Rinse and sort beans.  Cover with fresh water, start to cook over low heat in a covered pot.  In an iron skillet, cook your sliced Andouille sausage and add to the beans.  In the drippings, sauté onion, garlic, celery, and parsley.  Add this along with the Bay leaf to the beans.  Cook for 1 -1/2 to 1-3/4 hours.  Add water if necessary while cooking.  You want the beans to stay covered.  Serve over hot rice and with New Orléans Cornbread (recipe on this site).

Breakfast Casserole of Champions

This is a great breakfast or brunch dish to make for up to 15 people.  You can cut this recipe in half – just adjust your cooking time.  Prepare it the night before and just pop it into the oven the next morning.  So easy!  I like to make it with my left over homemade biscuits.  If you don’t have homemade biscuits – you can use a can of biscuits.  Just leave the biscuits out so they can get stale/dry.  If you want to spice this dish up you can substitute the bacon for spicy sausage and add green chilies, a few chopped tomatoes, and maybe some red pepper flakes.  The options are limitless!

• 10-15 Biscuits – stale/dry
• 1/2 medium onion, chopped
• 1/2 green pepper, chopped
• 1 lb. bacon cooked crisp and chopped (I prefer Applewood smoked bacon.)
• 12 – 18 eggs
• 1 cup milk (I like to use 1/2 and 1/2 or evaporated milk.)
• 1 teaspoon dried basil
• a touch nutmeg
• 1 teaspoon black pepper
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 2-1/2 cups cheddar cheese, shredded

Cook the biscuits the day before and allow to go stale. Cut each biscuit into quarters.  Cook the bacon until crispy.  Drain the bacon fat, but leave a little in the pan to sauté your onions and peppers.  Beat eggs together with milk and seasonings. Add the quartered biscuits, 2 cups of cheese, the bacon and vegetables and mix thoroughly.

Spray a 9×13″ pan with cooking spray and add contents. Sprinkle the top with the remaining cheese. Cover, and refrigerate overnight or for at least 8 hours. 

Cover with foil (sprayed with non-stick spray on the food side) and cook in a 375° oven for 40 minutes. Remove foil and cook for 20 more minutes or until firm and cooked through.

Let the dish rest for 5 minutes before cutting and serving.

Broccoli Cheese Soup

• I made this soup for lunch today and paired it with a smoke ham sandwich.  So easy to make and delicious on a cold day.

 

• 1 can chicken broth
• 1 small onion, chopped
• 1/3 cup flour
• 1/4 cup butter
• touch of salt
• pepper
• 2 cups milk (I used 2%.)
• 1-1/2 cups sharp cheddar cheese
• 1/2 cup swiss cheese
• 2-1/2 to 3 cups steamed broccoli florets, drained well

In a covered sauce pan simmer the chicken broth and chopped onion for about 15 minutes.  Heat the 2 cups milk for 1 – 2 minutes in the microwave.  In a separate pot, make a blonde roux with the butter and flour, add pepper; whisk in the warmed milk.  Stir and heat together on medium-high heat until mixture starts to thicken. 

Next add chicken broth and onions to the milk mixture, blend well.  Add cheeses and chopped steamed broccoli.  If you think the soup is too thick at this point, you can add extra chicken or vegetable broth.

Top 10 viewed Recipes for 2009

This has been a great year of recipes on Hugs from Home.  I hope you’ve enjoyed them as much as I have.  We received almost 4,000 views in the 6 months since we started blogging.  When you try a recipe and leave a comment on the website, it gives me so much pleasure!  Thank you all for your comments.  2009 favorite recipes are:  

Sweet Potato Pie – Homemade is best!

Sweet potatoes are so good this time of year and they are an excellent source of vitamins A and C.  My son Brady loves this pie. 

1-1/2 cup sweet potato, cooked until tender, (about 2 large or 3 medium)

1/2 cup sugar

1 teaspoon cinnamon

1 teaspoon allspice

1/2 teaspoon salt

3 eggs

1 cup milk (I like to use evaporated milk for this recipe.)

1 tablespoons butter

Beat sweet potatoes and butter, add remaining ingredients. Pour into an unbaked pie crust.  Bake at 360 for 40-45 minutes.  When serving, add a spoon full of whipped cream – yummy!

Coconut Sour Cream Cake – Sue’s favorite!

If you want a quick sheet cake recipe that’s not only delicious, but moist and dreamy, this is the cake for you.  This is Sue’s favorite cake.  Just for the record, my favorite is German Chocolate . . .

1 box white cake mix

1/4 cup oil

3 eggs

8 ounces sour cream

1 can of Cream of Coconut

Mix all the ingredients together at one time and pour into a 9×13 pan.  Bake at 350 for 35 -40 minutes.  We like a cream cheese icing for this cake – you choose if you want to add coconut to the icing or not.

Cream Cheese Icing

1 -8 ounce package cream cheese

about 4 cups powdered sugar

2 tablespoons milk

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

Cream ingredients together.  For the above cake recipe, you can also add about 1 cup coconut or sprinkle on top.

Perfect Roast Beef – Great for a celebration or holiday dinner

On one of my recent trips to Dallas, Texas, Sue and I cooked a standing rib roast for a birthday celebration. I cannot find adequate words to describe how tender, juicy, and down right fantastic this roast tasted. This roast cuts so perfectly and everyone raved about the flavor.  Anyone can make this – it’s so easy and perfect every time.  This dish is delicious with roasted root vegetables or garlic mashed potatoes.  See sauce recipe below.

Prime Rib, Rump, Rolled Roast or Standing Rib Roast – about 5 lbs. – room temperature
Rub oil over entire roast. Cover with salt, pepper and garlic powder. Cook uncovered on roasting rack in pre-heated oven (375 degrees) for 1 hour. Do this mid-afternoon or about 3 hours before the next step. After 1 hour of cooking time, turn oven off. DO NOT OPEN OVEN DOOR.  Important: Do not remove roast or re-open the oven door (no peeking) from the time the roast goes into the oven and until it’s ready to serve.

Before serving time, turn oven on to 300 degrees. For medium beef cool 45-50 minutes and for rare beef cook 30-40 minutes. Make a gravy reduction from the drippings and you can make a mustard horseradish sauce too. Yum!

Mustard Horseradish Sauce:

• 1- 1/2 cups good mayonnaise
• 3 tablespoons Dijon mustard
• 1 -1/2 tablespoons whole-grain mustard
• 1 tablespoon prepared horseradish
• 1/3 cup sour cream
• 1/4 teaspoon kosher salt

Whisk together the mayonnaise, mustards, horseradish, sour cream, and salt in a small bowl

Sour Cream Banana Bread

This recipe makes 1 loaf.  Banana bread is the perfect little snack this time of year when you are so tired of the rich holiday sweets. 

1 cup sugar

1/2 cup better

2 eggs, slightly beaten

1 -1/2 cup flour

1 teaspoon baking soda

1 teaspoon salt

1 cup mashed bananas, about 3

1/2 cup sour cream

 1 teaspoon vanilla

1/2 cup chopped pecans or walnuts or both!

Combine butter and sugar.  Add eggs.  Combine dry ingredients with butter mixture.  Fold in bananas, sour cream, and vanilla.  Add the nuts last.  Pour into a buttered loaf pan. Bake 350 degrees for 1 hour.  This recipe make a wonderful gift any time of year.