Sausage rice and beans Take dutch oven (9qt) add Olive oil for sautéing One chopped onion Some garlic - to taste. I used a shke of dried bits heavy dusting of chili powder light dusting of cayenne pepper Salt - to taste. Start this sautéing Get about a pound, or less chicken Italian sausage out of its casings. When onions are starting to get clear add in the sausage and sauté it all together. Add more olive oil if necessary. While this is cooking, rinse a cup of rice. Once the sausage is cooked remove all of it and the onions using a slotted spoon, set aside for later. Add the rice into the now empty but for the oil pot and fry it for a couple moments. Add 2 cups cold water to the rice, bring to a boil. Once the rice is boiling, reduce to low, cover pot and simmer for 13 minutes. While the rice is simmering, rinse a can if pinto or red beans. Make sure they are well drained. Once the rice is done, fold the sausage back in then fold in the beans. Lastly chop up a bunch of green onions with stalks and fold these in as well. Salt to taste. VERSION 2: This time I started frying the sausage first and about 1/2 through added in the onions. Worked great. Added some cilantro on this last batch. Seemed to go over ok. Also chopped in about 1/4 bottle of Ma's favorite goat pickled peppers. And, as a serving suggestion, sliced up some Campari tomatoes as a side when serving it. Don't need to rinse the rice. Comes out fine if you just pre-fry it. VERSION 3 (Julie went nuts for this version) 1 pack sausage like before but also 1/2 lb ground elk meat. At the end of the onions add about 2..4 tbl? chopped up jalapeños from a jar of sliced hot jalapeños. A really big clove of garlic, bunch of chili powder 1/2..1/3 that of chili recipe. Dusting of Cayenne pepper. Good dose of black pepper, salt to taste. When the meat, onions, spices n oil are finished frying, scoop it all into a colander over a bowl. Mash out most of the juice. Pour the juice back into the pot with a little more oil to pre-fry the rice. When its time to add the water in for cooking the rice, test it and add salt 'till its starting to taste more like broth than wet pot scrapings. Time to add in the beans, add a little salt to the beans while flipping them 'till they just start to taste ok. AND.. Use red beans, not pinto beans. In the end I added some finely chopped cilantro. Not sure how important that was. Picadegillo : An entire small bunch of green onions with stalks chopped fine. About 5? Small (Campari) tomatoes chopped up. Another huge garlic clove mashed. A bunch of cilantro chopped fine. Another tablespoon of the jalapeños chopped up. Mix all this together to add with the beans and when serving it. VERSION #4 Same as #3 But... Used a tube of sausage meat instead of cutting up links Should be the same. Chopped up 4 bottled Habanero peppers. No Jalopino peppers, no Cayenne pepper. The 4 Havaneros are hot enough! Added about a cup of sour beer at the end of the meat n onion cooking. Then I reduced this pretty much all the way down. Don't know which was more important, but the resulting flavor was AMAZING! NEXT VERSION No sour beer, used chicken broth to keep stuff "wet" 2 habaneros & bunch of jalapeños. An entire bunch of green onions chopped at the end. Tuned out wonderful! Tried making this into chimichangas but frying it in the hot oil seemed to kill the flavor. ANOTHER VERSION Did the standard with the tube of chicken sausage. & 1 habanero. Maybe habanero is too much? Tasted kinda' hot and bland. Added maybe a teaspoon of sugar and it really seemed to help the flavor. YET ANOTHER JULIE FAVORITE 1 1/2 onions, big pepper chopped fine and grilled in the oil first. Big difference was little extra sugar, LOTS of green onions and extra garlic added at the end.