I use the following chili con carne recipe just switch the meat to a pound or two of bacon and or diced ham and do not add rue or flower. I make white rice on the side using Joy of Cooking's boiled rice recipe #2. I then plate the rice and lade the beans on top. Then top with a generous layer of salsa.
I suggest you modify your favorite chili con carne in a similar manner.
My chili
I start with a bag of Ham' n 'Beans Brand 15 bean Cajun soup mix. Just follow the recipe on the bag to cook the beans both methods work well Oh I usually add an additional cup of water or 2 when cooking the dry beans.
A glass top Dutch oven works best for the quick method as it must stay covered the entire hour of boiling or the beans might not get soft. You want a boil not a slow boil or a rapid boil with the quick method and it is next to impossible to adjust the temp correctly with the lid off.
If you want to use cooked beans I suppose that is ok too but the only canned chili beans worth a crap were Brooks and I have not seen them on the shelf in years. I would just get about 4 15-16 oz cans of kidney and whatever color of beans you want to add.
Don't dis card the bean juice if your using canned.
You need to fry down about 4 lbs of ground meat I usually use a mix of pork and beef. Once it is browned and crumbled a pastry knife works well to crumble the meat in the pan continue to cook. I add about a ¼ cup or a bit more of dry basil at this point. And then add a large diced onion and prep a clove or 2 of garlic for each lb of meat. Sauté the onions about 5 to 10 minutes these until the onion becomes translucent then add the finely diced (or crushed if you used a press) garlic and sauté for a minute or so longer.
To the beans add 2 28 oz cans of crushed or diced tomatoes and one 28 oz can of tomato sauce. And usually one of the 28 oz cans full of water. I then add spice. The Ham' n 'Beans Brand comes with a spice pack for some people it will be hot enough. I usually add a small bottle of a Tabasco type sauce or two and about a ¼ to ½ cup of cayenne pepper I also add about table spoon of celery seed, about a cup of dry parsley, a couple of teaspoons of salt and a teaspoon of black pepper.
Drain excess grease from the meat. Now I have several large pots so I half the meat between two Dutch ovens or a larger stockpot. If I had a 5 gallon stockpot I could do this phase in one pot but. Any way back on track here I have the bean mix on top of the meat and stir. I then mix-wisk (this is critical else you will have soup not chili gravy) of ½ cup flour into 2 cups of cold water and strain it into the chili to remove lumps (there should not be any). I then simmer the mix for at least an hour.
This recipe will feed a lot of people but chili can easily be frozen and reheated in a microwave.
The above would probably feed a dozen or more people I figure about 2/3 to a cup of uncooked rice per meal.
Hope this helps with red beans and rice you do not want to thicken the sauce.
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The fact that we live at the bottom of a deep gravity well,
on the surface of a gas covered planet going around a nuclear fireball 90 million miles away
and think this to be normal is obviously some indication of how skewed our perspective tends to b