Need an easy, filling, one-pot meal that is ready in less than 30 minutes?  I know as a working mom I need all the help I can get in the kitchen.  This one-pot Bahamian Peas and Rice dish combines smoked sausage, pigeon peas, rice, and veggies!

Being a mother of two boys is hard work.  Throw in a husband that travels most days of the week, and I am just about frazzled every night.  Trying to think of easy, yet hearty, recipes to keep my boys full is a job all by itself.  This peas and rice pot with smoked sausage is a great one to add to your menu rotation!

My younger son is still in that pop tart, pretzel, plain pasta, canned soup, and chicken finger phase.  I can’t get him to try anything new.  My older son is really starting to spread his wings and try new things.  One place I can get him to try new dishes is when we visit my grandfather’s old home in the Bahamas.  

He was born, along with his four sisters, on the island of Green Turtle Cay, in the Abacos part of the Bahamas.  It is a tiny island, but full of history.  I had the privilege to spend my summers there as a child, visiting my grandparents and all their cousins, catching fresh fish, and making homemade coconut ice cream.

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My grandfather Curtis and two of his sisters: Cynthia and Beverly. That’s me in the red![/caption]

Even though my grandparents have passed away, I still have aunts, uncles, and lots of cousins to visit.  A few of the dishes that we eat while we are there include souse chicken, boiled fish, cracked conch, and “peas and rice.”

This souse chicken is made with potatoes, lime juice, allspice, and hot peppers and is standard breakfast in the islands.[/caption]

They have a macaroni and cheese that will blow your mind, but today I am going to share with you the “peas and rice” dish.

The peas in the “Peas and Rice” dish are pigeon peas or “gandules.”  The rice is toasted in the pan with bacon and sweet peppers.  Adding a bit of tomato paste adds some depth and a gorgeous red/orange color.  

The peas are added along with the broth or water and some thyme for its floral notes and cooked like regular rice.  Once the 20 minutes are up, you uncover this gorgeous pot of rice, peas, peppers, you are ready for a filling meal full of flavor!

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Peas and rice is typically a side dish, but today I am adding some Hillshire Farm smoked sausage and making this a complete meal!

The bit of bacon you add in the beginning to soften the onion and peppers adds a hint of smokiness, but I wanted to accentuate that flavor and add some more protein to this dish to make it a full meal for other busy parents to enjoy.

Look at how gorgeous that looks!  Can you believe you can get this in less than 30 minutes?

Because the Hillshire Farm Smoked Sausage that I picked up is already cooked, it shortens the cook time to the amount of time it takes to cook rice and saute the peppers and onions.  

And it really adds a depth of flavor to the staple pigeon peas and rice.

Here are a few step-by-step photos of the process:

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This Bahamian Peas and Rice with Smoked Sausage is a great dinner because it is 30 minutes and it is ONE POT! Check out my Butternut Squash soup for a great vegetarian one-pot meal that serves a lot of people for little money!

Making this dish at home reminds me of all the times I sat in my grandparent’s kitchen, smelling the rice toasting, and the fish frying next to it.  

The fish we would have caught on the boat that day, and that night I would be enjoying the fruits of my labor with my sunburnt cheeks and some sand still between my toes.

This is a view from the porch of the house and the very sand that I played on as a kid.  When we were done fishing, we could clean our fish right on the shore, and after dinner, we would sit on the shore and watch the stars.  Not a bad way to grow up.  It’s ok to express your jealousy…

I am very lucky to still be able to share these memories with my kids and let them make their own memories, right on this very beach.

In the meantime, back at home and in the middle of a busy week of school and tennis practice, I can make this Smoked Sausage Peas and Rice dish, we can talk about how many fish we are going to catch and which cousins they might be taller than when we go back next summer.

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