Football season marks the beginning of a whole new type of cuisine in our house. Long gone are the care-free summer days when supper might be freshly picked blueberries from Pop’s Blueberry Patch spun into a nutritious smoothie that the kids think is a milkshake. When supper might be an afterthought squeezed into the brackets of time between riding bicycles around the block drinking in the soundtrack of chirping crickets then piling into bed to watch a new animated movie without regard to school night bedtimes. Fall becomes the routine of after school homework, bath time and bedtime. Fall also strikes chords in the hearts of comfort food-seeking parents that have lain fallow since the tiniest green buds on trees began to appear.

This Louisiana girl thinks of Red Beans and Rice for a quick and easy football season meal that warms the soul as much as the tummy. Nothing says LSU tailgating like Red Beans and Rice, either. Some of the best by Billy LeBlanc. I met Mr. Billy while on a work-study scholarship at Louisiana State University in Baton Rouge. Mrs. Marlene, Mr. Billy’s wife, was my supervisor at The Graduate School. Mrs. Marlene took her student workers under her wing like a mother hen. For a north Louisiana student, a Yankee of sorts, Mrs. Marlene became my second mom. I enjoyed visiting with her son, Greg, when he stopped by to visit between classes. I had the pleasure of hearing stories about Mr. Billy and frequently spotted him around campus, as he was a university employee as well. When Donnie came to Baton Rouge for a football game, Mrs. Marlene invited us to their tailgating shindig. I had never been to a more lively tailgating function before! And the food…yum. The biggest pot of Red Beans and Rice I had ever seen!

This is not Mr. Billy’s recipe. In fact Mom clipped this recipe from Southern Living and made a few brilliant substitutions for an easy version of a classic Louisiana tradition.

1 lb. dried red beans

5 c water

1 onion, chopped

1/2 green bell pepper, chopped

1 1/2 T ground cumin

1 T chili powder

1/2 t Tabasco sauce

1 1/2 t salt

1 t pepper

1 (1 lb.) link andouille sausage

Wash and sort beans. Cover with water and soak overnight. Drain and place beans in Dutch oven. Add remaining ingredients. Bring to a boil. Cover, reduce heat and simmer 1 hour or until beans are tender. Serve over rice.

Tags: Louisiana, LSU, red beans and rice

This entry was posted on Sunday, October 18th, 2009 at 8:39 pm and is filed under Legumes, favorites, friends. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.