This is like a deep south jambalaya. I found it by googling “southern side dishes” and it sounded good, and it is really good. It what I would consider a BBQ vegetable, which means it’s mostly sausage and beans and rice and a couple of greens for color. Tasty, though.
Ingredients:
1/2 pound of smoked sausage (andouille works great here, and you should feel free to go with more if you like sausage)
1/4 – 1/2 pound thick cut bacon, diced
1 small green pepper, diced
1 small onion, diced
2 stalks celery, diced
2 serrano peppers, stems and seed removed, minced (totally optional)
A handful of garlic, minced
2-3 cans (15 ounce cans) black eyed peas, drained and rinsed
2 cups chicken stock
1 additional cup water (or chicken stock if you have it, I didn’t, so I had to use water)
1 bunch collard greens, chopped
1-2 tablespoons cajun seasoning
1-2 teaspoons thyme
1 cup uncooked white rice
Salt and pepper to taste
Directions
Put the bacon and sausage in a large pot or dutch oven and saute until the fat is rendered off the bacon. Ideally you want the bacon and sausage to start to crisp up, but my pot was burning so I couldn’t get that far.
Add in the onion, garlic, celery, bell pepper, and serrano and cook until the vegetables soften
Add everything else and stir to combine. Heat it up to a boil and then simmer, covered, until the rice is cooked, about 25 minutes. Stir it every few minutes and recover, because the greens are going to wilt much faster closer to the bottom of the pot. Make sure to scrape the bottom of the pot when you stir it to make sure it isn’t sticking; if it is, remove it from the heat and stir until it releases, then add some water and return it to a boil, stirring frequently, then reduce back to a simmer. Because it’s got all this rice in it, it can settle on the bottom and burn even though everything else is fine.
Alternatively, you could skip adding the chicken stock and rice and just add 2 cups of previously cooked rice to this at the end and mix it all together. That would probably be easier.
But anyway. Once everything is cooked, it’s done. Enjoy!
eatbensmeat 