Last Saturday I tried my hand at making some Red Beans and Rice. I looked around on cooks.com, and most recipes called for bacon, sausage, or ham. The problem with that is I wanted this to be a side to go with some slow-cooked pulled pork we were doing up in a crock pot. There were a couple vegetarian recipes, so I decided to cobble some together and make my own. Here it is:

1 lb dry red kidney beans
6 cloves garlic, crushed
1 med-large red onion, diced
1 large green pepper, diced
mushrooms to taste (about a third of a brown paper mushroom bag?), sliced
2 cups water
1 tbsp ketchup
1 tbsp worcestershire sauce
1 tbsp beef oxo
1 tsp parsley
1/2 tsp paprika
1/2 tsp basil
1/2 tsp oregano
1/2 tsp cumin
salt to taste

The beans need to cook up ahead of time. I brought a pot of water to boiling and turned off the heat, and soaked the beans in that for four hours. Then I rinsed the beans and simmered them in new salted water for two hours. The onion, pepper, garlic and mushrooms I fried together in a cast iron skillet untill the onions were translucent, then rinsed the beans again and added them to the veggies, and threw in the remaining ingredients to simmer together on low for 20-30 minutes, untill most of the moisture was evaporated. Traditionally, rice is cooked separately, and the beans are served overtop, although once it's served it tastes better all mixed up. I cooked up 1 1/3 cups dry parboiled rice, but that was nowhere near enough, so next time it'll be 2 cups.

It got a warm reception, and to me was the best tasting beans I'd ever cooked. The only problem was that the flavour was best described as "pleasant", which is normal for New Westminster, but not so much for New Orleans. I think next time I make this it needs wine vinegar or cooking sherry and definitely some cayenne, possibly bay leaves and/or more paprika too.