Yesterday I decided to cook from what I had on hand. I had soaked a cup of red kidney beans on Monday and cooked them on Tuesday, so they were in the fridge. I mentioned to my husband that I was thinking of making chili with them, and he said “I see them over rice”. So that did it. Red beans and rice it would be. I had onions, celery, a green bell pepper, some cans of diced tomatoes, and various spices. I also had the ingredients for corn bread. Then as I was rooting around in the freezer looking to see if I had some frozen jalapenos, I lucked upon the last bag of frozen collard greens. I had cooked these when the collards were in season and frozen them. My husband loves collards. I had a couple of vegetarian Italian sausages in the fridge as well.
So here we go. Chop the onions, celery, bell pepper and a couple cloves of garlic. Slice one of the vegetarian sausages. Brown the sausage slices in a little olive oil and set aside. Saute the onions, celery and bell peppers over low heat until the onions are transparent. Add some spices (I use chili powder, red pepper flakes and Italian herb mix) along with some chopped garlic, and saute a few seconds until fragrant. Add a can of diced tomatoes and the beans and let it simmer.
Cook up a pot of rice
Make the cornbread
Combine:
1 cup yellow cornmeal
1 cup flour
1 tbsp baking powder
1tsp salt
Add
Half stick melted butter
Stir in
2 eggs
1 and a half cup buttermilk
Pour into a baking pan or a cast iron skillet
Pop the cornbread in
Bake at 425 until golden brown
the oven
Put the collards in a pot and turn the heat up. Let them cook until thawed and heated through.
It was delicious.
Then to make the full Martha Stuart experience, I served them on placemats I made with napkins I made to match. I am on the road to uber femininity.
