Red beans and rice makes me think of New Orleans and Mardi Gras. I'm Julie Casio
with the University of Alaska Fairbanks Cooperative Extension Service and the
Children's Healthy Living Project. Before starting the cooking process,
read your recipe and gather all your ingredients. In addition to that, do any prep work.
This recipe calls for one chopped onion. One large onion will yield about two cups
of chopped. Brown rice takes about 40 minutes to cook, so that was started
ahead of time. The proportion for cooking brown rice is one cup of rice to two and
a half to three cups of liquid. This is a place where children can help by
measuring the ingredients. Choose long grain which we are using today, basmati,
or short grain rice. Whichever your family prefers. Brown rice is a whole grain,
so it offers vitamins and fiber. It's in the grain group. Since I have time to cook
rice today, I'm making double what our family of four will eat. That gives me
enough to have for fried rice tomorrow. If you're in a hurry, try an instant
brown rice, or reheat leftover brown rice from another day. Start by sautéing the onion. Heat
1 tablespoon of oil in the skillet or you can use a saucepan, depends upon
what you have on hand that's large enough to hold the sauce. Then add the chopped onions.
It will take about two or three minutes for the onions to soften during the sauté process. Beans do a double duty in the nutrition area.
They're a lean protein source, or they could be counted as a vegetable.
Of course, the stewed tomatoes are also in the vegetable category, so the beans become the protein source in this meal.
Brown rice is a whole grain, so it offers vitamins and fiber. So the onions have
been sautéing for about two, maybe a little more than that, minutes. You can
see that they're beginning to change color and release some of their juices,
brown just a tish bit. So we're going to add 4 cups of cooked beans to these onions. Otherwise, you could use two cans of red beans - if you can
find it in Alaska in the Louisiana-style. I haven't been very successful in finding that. Then two cans of
stewed tomatoes. Stewed tomatoes are a little bit larger, so if your family has
textural problems or maybe tomatoes aren't their favorite, but they'll eat a little
bit, you could substitute diced tomatoes for this; they could be canned diced
tomatoes or your home-grown tomatoes that are diced up. Then we'll add some
seasonings. We'll add half of a teaspoon of garlic powder, sprinkle it around. Then a half teaspoon
of salt. And if you're using home cooked, you may want a little bit more salt than that, unless you added salt
to it during the cooking process. And probably about a quarter teaspoon of
pepper because I like it. And then your hot sauce. How much you add of this will
depend on your family's tastes. The recipe calls for five to ten drops but
not everybody
who's going to be eating this likes it spicy. We'll cook this for 10 to 15 minutes at a
simmer and you can hear that it is about the right temperature. You can hear that simmer.
I'm also going to try and break up those tomatoes a little bit, as I stir and adjust the heat so it's warm enough to keep it at a simmer, but no too much. Okay, we'll be back when this is all heated through.
Wow, that smells really good. If you need to add any seasonings or adjust it, of course you can do that. Now that the rice is done, and the beans are heated through, its time to serve and enjoy your
taste of Louisiana.