Art and Mary Little helping keep Sulphur seniors well fed
Published 5:29 am Wednesday, October 12, 2022
- Art and Mary Little, Sulphur Senior Center volunteers, have been cooking beans and rice for appreciative seniors. (Special to the American Press)
Many would agree; it’s hard to find a more delicious and satisfying meal than beans, rice and cornbread. Seniors at the Sulphur Senior Center think so, according to Sulphur Senior Center CCOA Director Cynthia Beverly. They have been enjoying black-eyed pea sauce piquant over rice, red beans and sausage over rice and great northerns and ham over rice from volunteers Art and Mary Little.
“My children tell me I need to be going to the senior center,” 71-year-old Mary Farris Little said with a chuckle. “But I want to help the seniors, not be one.”
Little has been volunteering at the Sulphur Senior Center for some time, and her husband has always helped in the kitchen, but his strong suit is cooking outside, barbecuing and frying fish. With her busy schedule, she was always appreciative of his help.
She worked for 22 years for St. Theresa Catholic Church in Carlyss. After that she signed up with the Calcasieu Parish School Board as a regular substitute teacher from 2009 until the pandemic. She is on the Care Help and the CCOA board, the ACTS core team and she belongs to three Mardi Gras krewes.
“I don’t want to slow down,” she said. “I think staying active could help me remain active.”
She describes the center as a group of close-knit seniors and volunteers, “like a family” and says she’s made some good friends.
“When we first fed, it was like 40 seniors,” she said. “Now there are over 50.”
Beans are also good sources of protein, excellent sources of fiber and naturally fat-, sodium- and cholesterol-free. A ½ cup serving of cooked beans, on average, has 115 calories, 8 grams of protein, less than a half-gram of fat, 21 grams of carbohydrate and 7 grams of fiber. (That’s not counting the rice, the sausage, the ham or the cornbread.)
Black-eyed Pea Sauce Piquant
5 pounds sausage
3 onions
1 bell pepper
3 stalks celery
2 teaspoons garlic
2 cans Rotel tomatoes
2 cans Dawn mushroom steak sauce
Small can of mushrooms
2 cans chicken broth
1 small bottle Cajun Power Garlic Sauce
2 teaspoons tomato paste
2 tablespoons
Worcestershire Sauce
1 gallon black-eyed peas
Directions: In a large pot, brown sausage until brown. Add onions, bell pepper, celery and garlic. Statue and then add other ingredients and cook down a while. Add black-eyed peas, season to taste and cook for at least one hour. (Rinsing canned beans can remove 40 percent of the sodium.) Serve over rice.
