Red Beans and Rice

This seems like kind of an odd one to start off with in the middle of summer, but it's what we had for lunch today so it's on my mind...

I love to cook my beans from scratch, when I have time, and don't need to eat for a few hours, but I also have a pantry stocked with canned beans... it does not make you less of a cook, it makes you a real person. (One of the top reasons people say they don't cook is time. If a can of beans is all it takes to give you that time, then its thank goodness for whoever decided to put those beans in can!)

Ok- to start out, I recommend getting everything prepped before you turn on the stove, it will save more time, and give you a chance to clean up while everything is cooking.

Red beans and rice is a traditional Creole dish usually made with pork sausage. This is my own variation and I will be omitting the pork but feel free to add it in. To appease our taste buds though, we will need to get some smokey flavor back into this meal, there are a few different options, but we will get to that later.
First.. the ingredients!

1 med white onion
1 green pepper
1 red pepper
2 cups uncooked rice (I use brown rice by default, white rice is fine too)
2 cans drained red beans or kidney beans (or about 3 cups cooked dry beans if you so chose)
2-3 cloves of garlic
2 tbsp fresh basil
3-4 ribs celery
cayenne, paprika, salt, fresh cracked pepper, thyme, bay leaf, chili powder
vinegar
hot sauce
butter

ok- I am not a stickler for measuring... if you are, sorry, I'll try my best.
I'm not gonna lie, I use a rice cooker, its easy, and you don't have to worry about the rice being over or under done, and you can do other things while the rice is cooking...

1. In a skillet over medium heat, add a small amount of butter or olive oil, toss in about half the onion, diced, sliced, whatever you want to do to it is fine. Let the onion saute for a few minutes then add the dry rice to the skillet and stir to coat with butter. Keep stirring about 2 more minutes (this is gonna smell like heaven so get ready). Add the rice to the rice cooker with double the amount of liquid (1:2 ratio rice to liquid), water is fine, but I like using veggie broth. Add a bay leaf and let the rice cooker do its magic.

2. Turn on the broiler, and set the garlic cloves (still in their skin) and the green pepper, the rest of the onion can go too if you want, on a baking sheet and set them under the broiler. This will cause the skin to blister on the pepper. After about 5 minutes (maybe turn it a couple of times) remove the baking sheet from the oven and wrap the pepper in foil or put it in a plastic container with the lid on until it is cool enough to handle. Then, remove the skin and clean the pepper.
Chop the onion in to small pieces, and remove the skins from the garlic cloves. (This step provides part of that savory smokey flavor)

3. Place the garlic, 1/2 the green pepper, 1/2 the raw red pepper, 1/2 the onion and 1/4 c of beans in the food processor
3a. you may also add 1-2 chipotle peppers (this will increase the spiciness quite a bit) with their adobo sauce at this point, or 1 tsp liquid smoke and 2-3 rehydrated sun-dried tomatoes.
proceede with the food processing, set this aside.

4. In the same skillet as before, add any remaining onion, the celery and the red of the red and green peppers with butter or oil and saute for a few minutes. Add the processed veggie/bean mixture as well as 1/2-1 cup vegetable stock. Add the rest of the drained beans and let this simmer down to the desired thickness. You may also at this point add about a 1-inch piece of Kombu (a dried sea vegetable) This will add saltiness and a little more of that savory smokey flavor. This is also were the spices come in!! So here you are going add all your dry spices to taste, adjust the cayenne to your desired heat intensity, and watch out for the salt- we have veggie stock in two places, if you use the chipotles that adds salt, the kombu adds salt, and the butter (if you are using salted butter). In the last 2-3 minutes of cooking, add the fresh basil and fresh thyme (dried is fine, add it with the other spices).

5. When the rice is done cooking, REMOVE THE BAY LEAF, and combine the beans and rice in a serving dish. Serve family style with vinegar and hot sauce.

Side options that would be great with this?
Cornbread
greens
salad
okra
green beans with tomatoes