How to Make Red Beans

This is on the stove today to enjoy tonight and tomorrow night. This is the official Honest Wagner Steelers Beat Browns Reds Beans and Rice recipe.

A friend of mine taught this to me. He was from New Orleans, a Katrina evacuee who lived with us for a few weeks in September. I have made it six or seven times already, and I can't stop making it. It is the perfect football-weather fall dish.

What you need: some oil (olive or canola), an onion, fresh garlic, a package or two of andouille sausage (say it with me: ahn-DEWEY), a hunk or slice of ham, a tablespoon or two of cajun seasoning, a teaspoon or two of cayenne pepper, and two pounds of dried red kidney beans. (Canned beans will not work so well.) I use either two packs of chicken andouille sausage (four fat hot-dog length sausages per pack) or one pack and a big slice of ham.

How to make it: rinse the beans, get out any rocks you might find in there. Soak them for a bunch of hours -- maybe three or four or more -- until they swell up and split a bit.

Do your prep work first. Dice the onion, peel three or four toes of garlic, slice the sausage, dice the ham.

In an eight-quart stock pot (something that is more tall than wide), heat a small puddle of oil on high heat. Add the onion. Stand there and stir it while it browns. Keep the heat on high -- that's why you did your prep ahead of time. When the onion is browning up, press the garlic in there. Stir. When that's getting good, add the sliced and diced meat. Then add the seasoning: about one tablespoon cajun seasoning and one teaspoon cayenne pepper.

When all that stuff is good and browned, which should be pretty quick since you are working on high heat, add the beans (which you drained with a colander). Then cover everything with enough water to submerge everything by an inch or so.

Keep the heat on high or medium high. Boil that baby for hours, stir every now and again, and watch the beans cream up.

Make some rice, ladle the red beans on the rice, and cover with your favorite hot sauce. I like Busha Browne's Pukka Hot Pepper Sauce. Melinda's, Tobasco, Crystal, or whatever you like will work just great as well.

This will make enough red beans to serve maybe eight people. It reheats real well. Well you are done eating out of the pot, cover it and put it in the fridge. Then when you want it again, get it out, add water, and get it boilin' hot again.

The first day, it is a great stand-alone meal. You can eat a lot of it. The next day, it is better. And you cook something else as a main dish, and eat a lot of red beans as a side.

If you want more the next day, fried chicken will do you right. Chicken parts or chunks of breast (to make nuggets), breaded with flour, eggs & milk, and Dixie Fry, you fry them in three or four quarts of canola oil in maybe another tall stock pot if you have one.

For vegetables, anything green and cooked with salt and pepper will work good. Bake some plantains if you know how to do that.