Red Beans and Rice.

Blended some recipes from Kevin and Elise. Nothing surprising. It was pretty tasty.

Bean Salad.

From Elise. I don't eat celery often. I only take it in Cajun food and in stews and even then, not often. Like carrots, I basically only eat it if it is soft enough to mush. I do realize celery can be used like a spice. I just don't like it, generally.

So having a cold dish that uses celery is nice to have around. The dressing is vinegar and a surprising amount of sugar (equal parts) and a little less of a part olive oil. I used much less olive oil since it sounded like a lot to me, and I like my bean salads tart.

Red Kidney Bean Curry.

From smitten. I eat a lot of beans, so it's always nice to try something other than chili. I'm also a huge fan of Indian food, so this is a nice thing to have in my back pocket. It comes together pretty quick, maybe 30 minutes from start to finish.

Tamale Pie.

Comfort food sourced from Elise. It's basically a thick chili under a cornbread crust. I made the cornbread from scratch though I didn't make enough to get good coverage and still rise well. All in all, pretty good, though it's really nothing like a real tamale.

Refried Red Beans.

Maybe it's just been a while since I've had full-fat refried beans. But they were good. Kinda felt like I was eating poo.

CHILI.

Here's the sauce. I followed it but without the flour (used ground beef instead), fennel, cayenne (couldn't find them), and green pepper (didn't want to spend the money). I also wasn't paying attention to my measuring spoons and measure out everything relative to a 2 tbsp scoop, thinking it was a 1 tbsp scoop. So all the spices are right in proportion to each other, but it's actually double what the recipe called for. Still turned out delicious.

The picture is before I dressed it up. I was hungry. Typical additions: cheese, sour cream, Frank's, cornbread. I could eat this all night.