Red beans + rice and God's garden salad

Here is another recepie that ended up rocking, which is somthing I can rarely say if I'm talking about food I've made for the first time. Red beans and rice are a staple from my Louisiana childhood that I've never shaken my liking for. In reality this dish uses a ham bone and andouille sausage, but this one is slightly Texa-fied. I used smoked sausage and no ham bone, but lots of other yummies!

The salad is purely beautiful, and delicious - and the dressing is homemade! (love it when I can make this happen). I found the recipe in a gardening book I got for a dollar on campus a few weeks ago, it was my spring break reading cause in my heart I'm about 82.




Red beans + rice
1 crockpot (mine is a bachelorette's version at just 3.5 quarts!)


2 cups washed pinto beans
2 sausages
1 bay leaf
1 chopped up green bell pepper
1 chopped onion
2 cloves crushed garlic
1+ tsp chili powder
red pepper or cayenne to taste
salt and pepper
1.5 cups beef broth
1 tomato bouillon

-Put it all the in crockpot except the sausage and fill with 2 cups water and the beef broth until it rises 2 inches above the top of the beans. Boil sausage for 5 minutes if uncooked. Let sit 10 hours low and add sausage in the last 3 hours.
-Serve over rice. EAT!

God's garden salad (all organic)
1 cucmber 
1 carrot
5 sliced up cherry tomatos
1 half of sliced up avacado
handful of mozarella cheese (the kind that's made into pearl-sized bits)
lots of Boston or butter lettuce

*Dressing: 2 tbs olive oil, dash paprika, dash celery salt, dash mustard seed, salt and pepper, 1 tbs of red wine vinegar, dash of lemon juice, 1 crushed up garlic clove
-mix it all up and splash over salad. EAT!