I’m leaning towards eating more plant-based foods and desire to explore more bean & rice dishes. Share your favorites?
LH
I have a super simple one for dirty rice. Wild rice, 1 lb of ground sausage and two cans of dark red kidney beans. As was (rightly) pointed out in another thread awhile back, red beans would be more authentic for Cajun foods.
Another recipe uses a lot of leftovers. Wild rice (see a pattern here?), drained and rinsed black beans, whole kernel corn and a can of diced tomatoes. Brown some ground beef if you like with chopped onion, celery and bell pepper—any and all colors.
One more: wild rice (see), French-style green beans, mushrooms and a little “cream of___ soup”, for a side dish. Add some sliced almonds if you want to be fancy. 
Wild rice, such as that harvested by the Native Americans in Minnesota, has a very strong nutty flavor and is tough to chew. If I use it, I mix it in with brown rice. It’s also very expensive, since harvesting it in canoes is quite labor-intensive. Mixing it with brown rice helps extend however much you have.
If you want to use white rice, there are a number of varieties, depending on which cuisine you’re cooking in. For most bean and rice dishes, I’d recommend long-grain, cooked in chicken or beef broth.
Louisiana-style red beans and rice requires you use the Holy Trinity (finely-chopped onion, celery, and green bell pepper) along with the Pope’s Hat (finely-chopped cloves of garlic). Throw in some tomato paste, basil, cayenne pepper, and maybe some salt pork and Andouille sausage. Serve over rice.
I make Cuban-style black beans simmered together with garlic, onion, and pork ribs. Add tomatoes and green peppers if you want, and season with ground cumin, ground coriander seeds, and paprika. Serve over rice.
For Mexican-style frijoles con queso, soak and boil pinto beans until they begin to soften. Add some salt pork and chopped chorizo sausage and continue to simmer. Season with hot red pepper flakes, chopped onion, and ground cumin. Remove from the stove and stir in chunks of any mild white cheese, e.g., gouda and edam until melted. Place in a warming oven until sauce is smooth and bubbly.
Serve with “Spanish Rice”: long-grain white boiled in broth, mixed with chopped onion, green pepper, and tomato sauce. Saute the vegetables first in extra-virgin olive oil and season dish with garlic, basil, oregano, paprika, and a hint of cayenne. Let simmer until the tomato sauce has reduced a bit, stirring constantly.
All of the above can be seasoned to taste with ordinary salt, pepper, parsley, cilantro (coriander leaves), Tabasco, or whatever you fancy. (You might want to try a pinch of file powder in the Louisiana dish).
Enjoy!
Black beans and rice. I sautee a diced onion and couple of cloves of garlic until the onion is brown, then add two cans of black beans and about a teaspoon each of salt, cumin, ancho chili powder, and chipotle chili powder. Cover and simmer for a while, then add brown rice and (if you wish) chicken.
I’ve tried going Cajun with this and adding the rest of the holy trinity plus thyme, and my tastebuds can’t tell much of a difference.
I love New Orleans style Red Beans & Rice and John Besh has an incredible classic recipe for it in his cookbook. I’ll post the recipe as soon as I’m able to find it.
Split Mung Dal and Basmati Rice.
Basmati Rice is a long grain white rice - make as such.
Split Mung is a tiny innard of the Mung bean. Split mung is bought in Indian grocers and are tiny bright yellow beans almost the size of sesame seeds.
Bring a small pot of water to a medium boil. Put half a cup of beans in the water and boil for a half hour or until the beans just start to break down. Add a sliced tomato, a handful of frozen peas and a table spoon of a high quality curry power, teaspoon of turmeric, a pinch of cayenne and salt to taste. Once the tomatos and get soft and cooked…you have Dal.
There are alot more complicated ways of making Dal (using a chaunce with ginger and mustard seeds will tase better) but this will get u started and tastes great.
Fry up some onion and garlic, add a can of drained kidney beans. Stir in 3 units (by volume) of Basmati rice, add a crumbled stock cube (half if you’re not a fan of salty food) and then add 4 units (by volume) of boiling water. Make sure the whole thing is bubbling away, then cover with a tight lid and reduce the heat right down for 25 minutes. The rice should cook itself and absorb all the water in the mean time, leaving you with fluffy, flavourful rice and beans.
May fall into the “comfort” side of food than “gourmet”, but it kept me going for a few months of diminished income
I’ve been playing around with a pressure cooker lately. No specific recipe, but I made black beans (a bag, not canned) and added rice cooked separately and it was awesome.
I start out my beans (dry mixture of pinto, black, and kidney) in a crock pot with beer. Any old crappy beer will do. I sometimes add in a couple of shots of tequila if on hand. For added liquid volume once the beans soak up the beer, I add that day’s leftover coffee and top off with plain old water.
Seasonings: garlic, onions, serrano peppers (all diced finely), a chunk of salt pork, cilantro (fresh or powdered), and a couple of limes worth of juice.
Cook for two days.
Yummy beans!
To make beans and rice, I take some of these beans and mix it in with any old brown or white rice I have on hand cooked to directions. I sometimes add in some home made BBQ sauce (tomato base) and always some Tabasco to taste. Add everything together while hot. Maybe top with some diced fresh red onions.
Oh, wow, these sound great! Keep 'em coming (vegetarian also welcome).
Thanks! LH
Try leaving out the cumin and chile powders. Neither Cajun nor Creole is supposed to taste like Mexican or even Tex-Mex. A bit of file powder (there should be an accent mark over the “e”: “fee-LAY”), i.e., ground sassafras leaves, might give it more of a Louisiana taste. So would Tabasco or Crystal sauce, if you like things hot.
You might also want to add some seafood along with the chicken, particularly big Gulf shrimp.
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Open package of Zatarain’s New Orleans Red Beans and Rice
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Follow directions on back of box
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???
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Profit!
When I make chili nowadays, I always use dried kidney, pinto, and black beans, in equal amounts (about 1/3 pound each). Soak overnight and boil until they start turning soft. Turn heat down and continue to simmer; after about four hours, add about 1/3 pound salt pork and some crushed red pepper flakes. Keep stirring until the liquid has been reduced substantally, making sure the beans don’t burn. Remove from stove.
Chop a large green pepper and yellow onion and saute in corn oil or EVOO with a half-dozen cloves of chopped garlic. Season with sea salt and ground black, white, and red pepper.
Empty the veggies into the beans (you’ll need a big pot, maybe 5–6 litres, preferably cast-iron and/or enameled) and mix well. Stir in a can of diced tomatoes, a can of crushed tomatoes, and a small can of tomato paste. Add a bottle of good, malty beer and stir thoroughly. Add 2–4 stalks of celery, chopped, if you wish.
Fry 1–1 1/2 pounds of medium ground beef in the same pan (again, preferably cast iron) you used to saute the vegetables. Use a spatula to break up the beef until it’s crumbly. When it’s starting to brown, add it to the rest of the ingredients, and put the pot back onto the stove. Keep stirring until it begins to simmer.
Stir in your chili powder, mixing thoroughly. Use a good brand such as Carroll Shelby’s or Brown Bag, or make your own. My own blend consists of paprika, oregano, basil, granulated garlic, hot ground Indian chillies, cayenne, and lots of cumin (whole seed and ground).
Cover the pot and bake in the oven at low heat for two hours, stirring occasionally. Before serving, adjust seasoning to your taste and stir in some masa flour to thicken.
Variations on the above include using stew meat instead of (or in addition to) mince; lamb and pinto beans only; adding (or substituting) pork, venison, armadillo, or rattlesnake meat; or using eggplant, zucchini, and corn to make a purely vegetarian chili.
Serve over long-grain white rice, if you wish. (I like mine just topped with cheddar cheese and served with saltines and Crystal sauce).
I have made this, and it is pretty durn good
My favourite “rice and legume” dish is biryani (called breyani here) - here’s a local recipe featuring chicken, but you can leave the meat out, as the article mentions.
You know, I do make homemade Red Beans and Rice, and also homemade gumbo (yes, with my own roux) but I use Zatarain’s all the time to feed the eternal engine that is my family … except I doctor it up quite a bit.
To the box mix add:
1 can diced tomatoes (the kind with peppers if you wish)
1 can red beans (or black)
1/2 sliced and sauteed Echrich-type turkey sausage
1/2 diced and sauteed onion (I do the onion with the sausage)
2 cups cubed cooked chicken (or whatever you have. Leftovers are great)
1 package frozen okra
1/4 cup rice
Cook according to package directions. Delicious every time. Variations: shrimp, ham, ground beef or turkey. All good. All the time.