What's in Roman's Head? (Besides a Brain, Obviously.)

Easy Crockpot Red Beans and Rice

With Mardi Gras being last week, several people asked me about my Red Beans and Rice. I have a super easy way to make them using the crockpot. A friend of mine showed me this way while we were down in Louisiana a couple months back and it’s turned out to be my favorite way to make them. Of course, I’ve adapted, but the concept is the same and they are delicious this way!  What you see is the Red Beans and Rice with a very unique way of making cornbread, which I’ll have to share later. We always eat ours with cornbread, so make some to go along with it! This is also not the traditional recipe using tomato paste, because I can't stand it like that, to be quite honest. So here you have it:

What you'll need:

• 1 pound of red beans
• 1 med chopped (minced, or however you like) white onion
• 1 pound cooked Andoille sausage (you'll see me with smoked sausage because Andoille can only be found in one place here and at the time it was sold out. So in a pinch, yes, you can use smoked sausage)
• Salt
• Pepper
• Tony Cachere's seasoning (or if you can't find it, use soul seasoning)
• 1 bay leaf
• Instant Brown Gravy (powdered. If you can't find the jar, you can use packets)
• Brown or White Rice

What you're gonna do:

• First you need to rinse and throw out any funky looking beans. Pour in your crockpot. I use a 6 qt for this one, but it works fine on 4 qts as well. 
• Add your chopped onion, sausage, bay leaf and season to your preference. If you aren't used to Tony's, then I'd suggest going light at first until the end when you can taste test to preference.
•  Cover with water at least one inch. If you are going to be leaving them, I'd suggest adding to cover about 3 inches to ensure they don't dry out. You can always remove water if you need to later. However, you can't unburn your beans. Just sayin'.
• Turn on low for approximately 6 hours or high for 4 hours. 
• Keep an eye on the water level, and add as necessary. Don't let it dry out!! Keep it to where there is plenty of room for the beans and sausage to flow freely because you are going to make a gravy with it next.
• About an hour before it is time,  add the instant brown gravy. I don't have an exact number for you, but I would start with 6 tablespoons. Check after 15 minutes and add more brown gravy mix if it's not thickening. Remember, you need to have enough water in there for this!! If you need more water, add it. If you have too much water, remove some. If you want more gravy, add more water and more mix. Easy fix!
• Once your gravy is the consistency you want it, let it simmer for another 30-45 minutes or so. 
• This is where I like to prepare my rice. This is a good opportunity to use brown rice because you really cannot tell the difference. 
• Once it's ready, remove bay leaf and taste test to determine if you need more salt, pepper, or Tony's.
• Add rice to a bowl and top with red beans and rice. Sorry, I already mixed mine up!

Hope ya'll enjoy! If you have any questions, ask!!

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The Liebster Award!! (Plus a few things that made me happy!)

This past week a couple nice surprises came my way for my little blog. Yes, I get excited about these things! J First of all, Miz Helen @ Miz Helen's Country Cottage chose my Garlic-Cheddar Biscuits to be featured on her Full Plate Thursday. Then, @ last weeks Pomp Party over at Joy in the Jumble, my biscuits were featured as the most viewed! So thank you to all ya’ll that have taken the time to stop by and check out my biscuits J Hopefully the my other goodies are just as great for you! I’m so impressed and thankful for how much this little section of my world has grown in the past month. And that’s all thanks to ya’ll!!

Another awesome thing that happened was the Cookin' Cowgirl (you'll know her for those damn Thin Mint Truffles so many of my friends have pinned that will be the death of me! She's killing me this week with Butterfinger Oatmeal Cookies. Um, how many different language of delicious does this translate to?!?!) awarded me with the Liebster Blog Award!  The great thing about it, is that it is for blogs with 200 followers or less. (I’d love for you to follow along, though, if you stop by! And let me know if you do because that has been how I’ve discovered some of my favorite blogs and I love learning/trying new things!! You can follow through GFC if you have it, by email or RSS, Facebook, and Linky. All can be found on the right-hand side here ààààààààà)

 The word “liebster” is German for “dearest” and I’m so very excited that she even thought of me and my blog for it! Thank you so much! I’m so happy you enjoy what you see enough to consider me J

Now, for a little housekeeping. In order to accept the award, you have to do a couple things.

          1) Thank the person that nominated you on your blog and link back to them.

          2)    Nominate up to 5 other blogs for the award.

          3)    Let them know via comment on their blog

          4)    Post the award on your blog

That’s it!

So for my 5 Liebstar Blog Awards, I’d like to give them to:

1) Jacinta @ My Beauty Boxes: She is a friend of mine who has a very unique blog that most of you will LOVE!! She has monthly subscriptions to “Beauty Boxes”.  These are monthly beauty samples through different companies. They are awesome! I have two of them (Birchbox and Beauty Army). Jacinta is excellent about giving a non-biased review on the company and products, therefore letting us know which are worth it, or not! Love, love, love this! You definitely won’t be disappointed with this one!

2) Kelsey @Illuminations in Orbit: This girl is a lot like me in the fact that she enjoys all things creative. So it’s a lot of fun to follow along with a like mind. Some of things that make her blog unique are Gluten-Free ideas, a section she features deemed “soul searching”, and she enjoys fashion-forward AND vintage (win-win)! How can you go wrong with a little bit of everything?

3) Anna @ Universal Gibberish: The title says it all! You never know what you are going to find here, but it is sure to be entertaining. Anna is such a sweetheart and I LOVE her random posts! You can count on her to speak her mind and give honest opinions. She loves writing and is a big movie buff, and that's part of what makes this one so fun!

4) Veronica and Daniel @ Adventures of D and V: It’s definitely always an adventure here! With glimpses into their lives and interests, along with some delicious recipes, you can’t go wrong with this one! Some of my favorites include the Gluten-Free ideas, Devotional ideas, and the random chuckle-worthy posts. Love this one!

5) Kim @ American Honey: This is a little unorthodox. I’m including this one because it’s very real. This is a friend who is going through a very tough, emotional time in her life and she speaks with words of raw emotion through the ups and downs. It’s very encouraging, actually and I’m sure this could show a lot of people they are not alone. Or if you’ve been there, I’m sure she could use the positive reinforcement. She deserves it!

Well, there you have it! This was actually pretty hard for me to do and I wish I could choose at least 10!! Hope ya’ll enjoy and check all these fun folks out!!! 

Disney and Inspiration

So in two weeks we are leaving for Disney world. I am pretty sure I am more excited than anyone else in the house, but I’m okay with that. I’m going to start next week on our tshirts so we can be that crazy family this year! :D I’m also excited because a friend sent me an article today with Disney tips and although I had already prepared for most of them, one I didn’t know about saved me a ton of money! See, we got rid of our double stroller this year so now I don’t have one. However, I don’t think I’d take it if I did have it because it takes up so much room and there is no way I’m strapping anything on the top of my car that isn’t made for hooking directly up to it! Anywho, there was a part about stroller rentals and how expensive it is. For multiple days for a double stroller it is 27 dollars through Disney. And that’s those funky uncomfortable ones. Well I found a company with much more comfortable and compact strollers. Instead of paying what would have been 130 something dollars plus the 100.00 for the deposit with Disney, we are paying 65.00. score for me J

I guess I can go out of Disney font for the rest of this. But how fun was that? Seriously.  This week I took an exam for my nursing clinicals and got a 92. You only have to have a 60. So I was happy, but that was short lived when I remembered that this program isn’t competitive and as long as you meet the requirements, you can apply and be drawn from a hat for 20 slots. Which is kind of interesting because I’m eligible for advanced placement, depending on how much I test out of over the summer. I really am irked by this process.

So to get back in a better mood, two awesome things happened today. My exhaust came in for my car (yes,  that excites me) and the rest of my parts for it should be here by Monday. The other thing had to do with my writing. Most people that know me well, know I love to write and I’ve been writing since I was a kid. I have an issue with my writing, though. I don’t want anyone to see it. I take that back, I don’t mind people reading, but I don’t think I could ever publish.  Why? Because I have such a personal attachment to my characters, I don’t want to give them up for interpretation. Yeah, I’m selfish J So I haven’t gotten to write much in these past two weeks on my current piece, so today I read through it (even though I jump scenes like crazy. I write as it comes to me. Even if it’s out of order) and at the end I was left wanting more. Of my OWN writing. I thought it was pretty awesome that I had the feeling that I do when books end and you are thinking, “What the hell? That’s it? No!” So today I found inspiration in myself. I’m just so transfixed by my characters right now that I just want to know what happens myself at this point! So I’ve allured myself into my own story. Pretty self-absorbed of me, but I’m impressed none-the-less. J

WW: Kade-y Bug Stops to smell the..lillies :)

I don't think she was much on 'em ;)