Saturday, April 4, 2009

Sausage, Rice & Beans for One

This is another dinner inspired by a leftover. We had some wonderful Polish & Ukrainian sausage from an amazing Eastern European deli in Northeast Minneapolis, Kramarczuk's, at our beer tasting this weekend. There were a few sliced left so Matt suggested I use them to make beans & rice for myself this week.
Red beans, rice & sausage
I typically would have let the beans cook with the rice in a recipe like this but it seems so often my dried beans are not getting tender enough in time & I end up overcooking the rest of the food. This time I cooked the beans to tender & then just added them in at the end so they had the perfect texture. You could stop cooking the beans a little earlier than I did & add them in with the rice to finish them off. If you do that I would add a little more broth.

Sausage, Rice & Beans

1/4 c dried red beans
1/2 T olive oil
1/4 c red onion, diced
1 clove garlic, minced
2 T chopped red onion
1/2 c link sausage, diced (I used a good garlicy Polish)
1/2 T tomato paste
pinch of smoked paprika
pinch of chipotle powder
1/2 c of diced fire roasted tomatoes
1/4 c basmati rice
1/2 c chicken stock
salt & pepper

Put the dried beans in a pan with 3/4 c water & bring to a boil. Let boil for two minutes. Remove from heat & cover. Let sit for 1 hour. Bring to a simmer & simmer gently for 60 - 90 minutes until tender, adding more water if needed. Drain & set aside.

In a medium saucepan heat the olive oil over medium-high heat. Add the onion, garlic & sausage and cook until the onion begins to get translucent. Stir in the tomato paste, paprika & chipotle powder, cook for about a minute. Add the tomatoes, rice & chicken stock & bring to a boil. Reduce heat & cover. Allow to simmer for about 20 minutes or until rice is tender. Add the beans & heat through, adding more broth if its a little dry.

1 serving

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12 comments:

  1. agree with you about pre-cooking the beans part of the way. I've found I need to do it even with lentils just to ensure the timing of the rest.

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  2. Usually when I make rice and beans, the beans get cooked until tender then the rice gets added to finish off. This is one of my favorite Creole dishes.

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  3. More gorgeous comfort food! That sounds lovely.

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  4. Looks great! I'm almost ashamed to say I've never made rice & beans from scratch, only used Zatarain's. But it's good for a box :)

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  5. What a great photo of an often difficult to photograph dish. Sausage, rice and beans is one of my favorite combos!

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  6. A wonderful combination and a great nutritious dish

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  7. I love the "for one" recipes - I need some good ones for lunches!

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  8. kat, you've done a terrific job of capturing the beauty of this dish. i've tried to photograph beans and rice and just end up with a dull, hideous blob. :)

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  9. I'm hungry just looking at this! it looks wonderful.

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  10. Kramarczuk's is awesome but if you ever find yourself down in Savage, check out Paradise Market on 13 just east of I-35. I love beans and sausage over rice, although I usually just steam the rice separately and spoon the beans over it. This looks great!

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  11. I am loving these single serving recipes! This looks so good, I was thinking about having some sausage and white bean soup for dinner and now I'm definitely craving it.

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  12. I always end up making way too much. I am so impressed with your ability to get it to one serving. Great pic.

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