Red Beans

Cajun Red Beans & Rice is where this comes from, just without the rice.

Ingredients

• Half pound dry "small red beans". (about half the size of kidney beans)
• 1 tsp baking soda
• 3 cups water

• 2 Tbsp cooking oil
• 1/4th of an onion, diced
• two stalks celery, diced
• 1/2 green bell pepper, diced
• 1/2 red bell pepper, diced
• lots of fresh thyme (2 Tbsp? 1/4 cup?)
• a little minced fresh sage (1/2 Tbsp?)
• 1 tsp salt
• 1/4 teaspoon cayenne pepper

Cooking

Soak the beans for 8 hours. Drain, rinse, put in 3 cups of water. Add baking soda to raise the Ph, making the water more basic. Acidic water prevents the beans from softening as they cook. This is more important with older beans or if your tap water is more acidic. Let beans simmer for 1 hour.

Preheat the oil in a saute pan. Dice the onion and slowly saute over medium low heat. Dice the celery and add that to the pan after the onions have started to go translucent. Dice the peppers and toss them in. Get the leaves off the thyme sprigs and set them aside (the leaves, not the little twigs).

Add the salt and cayenne and get them stirred in. Lower the heat to low if the beans aren't ready yet.

When the beans are ready (reached desired final tenderness), drain them over a container and reserve the liquid. Add the beans to the saute pan and stir it up. Add some of the cooking liquid, if desired, to reach your desired soupiness.

Turn off the heat, add the fresh thyme, give it a final stir and it's good to go.

Makes 3 main dish portions or 6 side dish portions.

Goes great with turkey kielbasa, andouille sausage, or crawfish.