Pinterest Success: One-Pot Red Beans and Rice

Yes, another success!  Granted, most of my beginning Pinterest posts will be successes as my past failed pins I immediately deleted and didn't "document", so it might be a while before an actual failure pops up.  Last night's recipe pin was a brand new one though, so it could have gone either way.  I think it went splendidly.

Before dinner I had my routine of play with Leif, feed him dinner, play some more then bed time.

He likes to floss his teeth with the string from his telephone pull-toy.  Hey, more power to him for pretend flossing!

So he's mastered getting into a couple of my Mary Kay bins and he found a loose headband.  I put it on him and I couldn't stop cracking up-he'd take it off his head, then continuously try to put it back on.  He's a funny little boy.

Alright, onto the pin!

One-Pot Red Beans and Rice, link to the recipe here.

I started by grabbing all the ingredients:

Not pictured: canola oil and other spices

Cooking up the sausages-hubs is not a fan of spice, so I used Smoked Andouille chicken sausage for me and Garlic Herb sausage for him.

Sausage & Veggies

Almost finished!

Voila!

I really enjoyed this recipe-I just wish I could prep/cut faster.  I think that takes me longer than the actual cooking part.  Here are the few modifications I made:

1. I used a few garlic cloves instead of one, I love garlic!
2. I used two celery ribs instead of one 
3. The recipe calls for instant rice and to simmer with 2 1/2 cups of chicken broth; I used old, cooked rice and about a cup of chicken broth and it worked just fine.  It also cut down the cooking time!

I asked hubs what he thought of the food-he said it was good, but I can read him like a book.  He didn't like how spicy it was-just because he had a hard time picking out the different sausages and the cajun spices I used had a kick to it.  We are so different as far as food!  He has a serious sweet tooth, I eat almost everything with hot sauce or cayenne pepper.  :)  I will still make this again, it didn't call for a lot of ingredients and the title is true-all you need is one pot, so less clean up!

On another note-a while back I asked my pa if he wanted to go in with me to order wine from the Marjim Manor Winery we visited in New York back in August...I found a white wine that I could probably drink every single day.  It's SO delicious.  Well, what a nice surprise when a box was delivered to me at work with FOUR bottles of wine!  Three were my favorite, one was a red.  And my friend/coworker and I exchanged gifts a couple days ago-I got him a bunch of mini whiskey bottles, he got me: wine.  He said, "Great minds think alike."  Aaaand all of a sudden I'm a wino.

The Starlight is SO good-it's not very acidic and has hints of apple.  I had a glass with dinner-thus the almost open bottle in the middle.  :)