Jamaican Style Red Beans and Rice

I found this delicious-sounding Red Beans and Rice dish from Emeril Lagasse and decided it must be done. With some minor alterations. Okay, a LOT of alterations. But the deal remains the same; you'll need a good two and a half hours to make this, so get onnit early!

You will need:

8 oz dried kidney beans ( about 1 1/4 cups)
6 garlic cloves, chopped big. ly
3 cups cold water
946 ml chicken stock, unsalted and fat free (sounds DELISH, right??)
1 cup light coconut milk
6 sprigs fresh thyme
1 small onion, chopped fine
1 tablespoon butter
2 tsp salt
4-6 Thai chiles, or 1 giant Scotch Bonnet pepper (I don't even know what that is)
1/2 tsp ground all spice (about 10 seeds)
2 cups uncooked brown rice
8 oz boneless skinless chicken breasts (about 2)

Prep! You can do most of it while the beans start, so rinse them and throw in the pot with the garlic, water and chicken stock. Bring them to a boil, then cover and simmer for 30 minutes. Now do the rest!

Strip the thyme off the sprigs; save those stalks for your stock, yo! I lurrrrvvvvvee fresh thyme, I just wanna lick my fingers after.

Chop your onion, halve your chiles, cut your chicken into bite-sized pieces and um, open your canned coconut milk. After cutting the chicken, you may as well cover it and put it back in the fridge. You don't need it for awhile.

After the 30 minutes, add in the thyme and coconut milk, cover and cook for another 45 minutes to an hour.

So then it looks..thusly

Now dump in the onion, chiles, salt, butter, all spice and some pepper, stir and cover for three minutes.

Dump in rice! Stir well, bring to a boil, stir again, cover, let cook for five minutes then stir and cover again. Whew! Got all that? Awesome! High fives all around, go take a break, let that cook for 25.

Until it looks thusly. Ish

Now add in the chicken, stir well AGAIN, cover and let cook for 10 more minutes.

Now set it aside and don't look at it for 10 minutes. Eyes up here, soldier!

Give it ANOTHER good stir (we're gonna have wrestler forearms soon!), portion between 6 people at 359 calories per, that's not bad, right?? We could have a salad and a wee eensy bit of dressing and we'd be in around that 400 calorie range, woo hoo!

Enjoy!

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