Red Beans & Rice
1 lb. dried red beans (try to find the freshest you can  whole, plump-looking beans, without cracks or splits)
2 qts. low-sodium chicken stock (replace some of this with a bottle of beer for a deeper flavor)
1 large yellow or white onion, diced
1 bell pepper, diced
2 stalks celery, diced
1/2 lb. bacon, chopped
2 smoked ham hocks
3 bay leaves
1/2 teaspoon dried thyme
4 cloves garlic, chopped
cajun seasoning, to taste (I’m partial to Emeril’s blend, even though I come from a Tony Chachere’s family)
black and cayenne pepper, to taste
hot sauce (some people swear by Tabasco, but I prefer Melinda’s habanero sauce or even Trappey’s Indi-Pep, but this one can be hard to find in stores)
1 lb. andouille, cut into 1/2-inch pieces (optional  use smoked sausage if you can’t find andouille where you live)Soak beans overnight in lots of water. The next day, drain and rinse the beans, picking through them for rocks. Discard rocks or begin a tiny rock garden  your choice. Put beans back into pot with chicken stock and ham hocks and bring to a boil. Reduce heat to a simmer.
While beans are coming to a boil, fry bacon to render fat. Drain bacon on a paper towel-lined plate while reserving a couple of tablespoons of fat in the pan. (At this point, you can start your very own bacon grease jar if you’re feeling overly healthy or just discard the hot grease in an old glass jar.) Sauté the onion, bell pepper, celery, and garlic in the reserved bacon grease until vegetables are soft. Add wilted veggies to the beans along with the rest of the ingredients minus the andouille. Simmer for at least two hours, stirring occasionally. In the last hour of cooking, fry the andouille to render some of the fat and add the sausage to the beans. Stir more frequently in this last hour of cooking to keep beans from sticking to the bottom of the pot. If they do begin to scorch and stick, DON’T STIR  just transfer beans to another pot and be more careful this time, for pete’s sake! It’s an easy dish, but not completely foolproof, you know!
If you like creamy beans, near the end of the cooking time, just mash some of them against the side of the pot with your cooking spoon.
Serve with whatever rice you like, following package directions, but please, please add salt to the cooking water. You’ll thank me for that tip. I like to serve my red beans & rice with a piece of blackened smoke sausage (cut sausage into 2-inch pieces, then cut lengthwise, and cook in a frying pan over medium-high heat until they’re cooked through and look burnt). Yum!
