Red Beans and Rice

I'm not entirely sure what possessed me to make red beans and rice. Maybe I was thinking back to the time I spent in New Orleans with The Newtster and eating good meals. Later in the day I was looking through the topics of recent Good Eats episodes and...(drum roll)... Alton had made red beans and rice. It was a sign. I must make red beans and rice.

I used Alton Brown's recipe, mainly because it did not require me to pre-soak the beans. Before I could make the beans though, I required a trip to the store to pick up some sausage to replace the pickled pork (three days is entirely too much planning for a meal for me).

Luckily there are plenty of options in my neighborhood to buy cured meats. My first stop was at the Sunnyside Meat Market. Oh man. This place is something else. Its a pretty cramped operation, mainly because its wall-to-wall cured meats. I don't remember anything being labeled and the only thing I recognized was a smoked turkey leg. I was pretty frazzled when I was in there and the ladies behind the counter weren't terribly helpful (most likely because I could not articulate what I was looking for). I can't even remember what I asked for. I ended up with a hard smoked, slightly spicy sausage. Its good, so its a shame I don't know what its called. Maybe I'll bring in a picture if I try to buy it again.



I then went to Massis, which is an ethnic supermarket of sorts. Mandy and I had wandered through there one evening and I was fairly confident that I could get some Kielbasa. When I asked for some Kielbasa, I was first offered a log of the stuff the size of my leg. I eventually managed to buy a more reasonable sized sausage.



Finally I stopped at the Butcher Block looking for a ham hock to throw in the pot. Unfortunately they were all out. I bough a ham steak figuring that I could throw a portion in along with some of my other pick-ups. Had I really been thinking I would have wandered back over to the Sunnyside Meat Market and picked up a smoked turkey leg which would have added more flavor.

I returned home and prepared the beans. I used about 1/3 of a pound of each of the forementioned meats in place of the pickled pork.

The consistency was a little watery than I would find ideal, but I don't have a potato masher to go to work on the beans. They were pretty tasty, but in the future I think I'll just use a smoked turkey leg to add flavor instead of my sausage/ham mixture.