Beans, Sausage and Rice

This was a pantry clearer for me and came out pretty good. Essentially, I had a few things in my pantry and fridge that I wanted to use. I had some kielbasa and some beans that I wanted to use. So, I combined a few things that I knew about cooking and came out with a very good flavor - which, when added with rice - made a meal that I ate over the course of 4 or 5 days as leftovers.

Ingredients

1 Pound of Italian Sausage (or a substitute like Kielbasa)

6 Garlic Cloves

1 medium Onion

1 carrot

1 celery stalk

2 tablespoons olive oil (or grapeseed oil)

1 1/2 teaspoons cumin

2 bay leaves

1 1/2 teaspoons dried oregano

1/4 teaspoon kosher salt

3 cans of beans (red, black or combo) - drained, rinsed and cooked

1 can of chicken stock

1 tablespoon of lime juice

Cooking Directions

In a food processor, chop the garlic. On a cutting board, chop onions, celery, and carrot. You don't have to chop them fine, because the next step is to add them to the food processor to chop them fine.

Cut the sausage into bite-sized pieces. Add oil to pan, heat over medium heat. Add sausage. Cook until brown and the fat is rendered. Remove sausage with a slotted spoon and set aside on a plate. Add cumin to the pan and stir for about 1 minute in the sausage grease. Reduce heat to medium low so we can sweat the mirepoix. Add garlic, onion, carrot, celery mixture to the pan with the salt, oregano and bay leaves and sweat. This will take 10 minutes – it will be done when the onions are translucent. Stir occasionally.

We are going to wash and strain the beans. I want to keep a little bit of the juice from the cans – essentially strain the first can of beans and catch the juice, put the juice in the pot, then strain and rinse the other two cans of beans. Add the beans to the pot, bring to a boil, and then reduce heat to simmer.

When the vegetables are ready, add the beans and chicken stock to the vegetables, bring to a boil, and then reduce to simmer for 5 minutes.

Scoop out 1 cup of the beans and liquid and puree in the food processor. Return the puree to the pan and add the sausage. Continue to cook for 5 minutes at medium heat.

Remove the bay leaves. Stir in the lime juice and serve over rice.

Cooking Notes

You could add some red pepper flakes to the puree for a little more spice.

This dish has a lot of different options for seasoning that you could add at various points in the cooking - either in the mirepoix, after you add in the beans, or in the puree.

The mixture after adding the beans and stock to the vegetables

Stirring the beans in (you can see that I used black and red beans for this one)

You can see the mixture reducing (and the bay leaves, of course)

Add 1 cup of mixture to food processor to puree (careful, it's hot)

This is the consistency of the puree

Return puree to the pan to thicken the mix

You can see how the mixture has finished reducing and is plenty thick now.

Beans, Sausage and Rice served over a bed of rice