Red beans and Rice for a rainy week

I got a Instant Pot Pressure Cooker for xmas! Well it isn't quite as simple as that - here's what happened. Every Saturday during the farmer's market season I go to Shed about 8am and have a little cooking/food/movie/life/politics discussion with Franco - of Franco's Sausage - and one day in November we were joking and laughing about pressure cookers - both of us agreed that they seemed crazy - like who has a potential exploding device in their kitchen? My mother gave me her "refurbished" one from the 50's and NO WAY was I going to try using that ticking time bomb. A couple weeks later Franco said - I bought a pressure cooker and I LOVE IT! Now Franco is a chef I admire so of course I followed suit - and bought the 6 quart Instant Pot - gotta love Amazon! I've been experimenting and will continue to post as I go - but this week was Red Beans and Rice - totally perfect for a rainy day! Now if you haven't gotten on the Pressure Cooker train yet, you can just do it the sloooooow way in your crock pot. But I'm telling you - I'm hooked!
 

Red Beans and Rice

Ingredients

• 1 pound dried red beans
• 2 tablespoons oil
• 1 onion
• 1 large bell pepper, I prefer red
• 2 stalks of celery
• 2 cloves garlic
• 3/4 pound andouille sausage
• 2 slices smoked ham or Tasso if you can find it
• 1 tablespoon Cajun spices, I use Paul Prudhomme’s
• 2 tablespoons butter
• cooked white rice
• Green onions

Takes about 1 hour in pressure cooker, 3 hours in slow cooker, serves 6.

Instructions

1. In your pressure cooker add the oil and heat up on saute.
2. Chop onions, celery and bell pepper and sauté in oil until soft, about 8 min.
3. Add in chopped garlic, sliced sausage, chopped ham and spices and sauté for a few min.
4. Pour over 6 cups of water .
5. Lock on pressure cooker lid and set to 20 min, let cool down 10 minutes then release pressure.(can you believe this? I didn't even soak the beans!)
6. Check to see if beans are done, if not put on sauté for a few more minutes. Stir in butter and taste for spiciness and add salt and pepper to taste. Serve over rice and sprinkle with chopped green onions.

I will also go back and edit some of my recipes that I have adapted to the Instant Pot (can I just say why on earth is it not Instapot?) And HAPPY NEW YEAR by the way!