Bayou Dirty Rice

I remember when Popeye's Fried Chicken opened in town when I was growing up. The spicy flavors and crispy crust of the chicken beat KFC by a country mile. That was also my first experience with "cajun" food. Don't judge me, I lived a sheltered culinary life as a young'n. One of the things I loved was their side dish of "dirty rice" .

This isn't a clone of their dirty rice. It's just the easiest one I've found that comes reasonably close. It's not an authentic cajun dirty rice. But that's okay because I'm just not going to make something with chicken livers and most of the other recipes I've found call for those foul fowl things.

Bayou Dirty Rice
Ingredients
1/2 lb Spicy sausage; crumbled
1 md Onion; chopped
2 Stalk celery; very finely chopped (I hate big chunks of celery)
2 pk Wild and long-grain rice (Uncle Ben's)
2 can diced tomatoes (recipe called for Del Monte cajun)
1 Green bell pepper; chopped (I used red instead)
1/2 c Parlsey; chopped

Instructions
The original recipe calls for doing this stove top which works, but I did mine in a dutch oven on the Big Green Egg cooking at 350f tonight.

Brown the sausage and onion. Drain grease if necessary. We didn't have to this time. It depends on how fat or lean your sausage is.
Add celery, bell pepper, rice and rice seasoning packet; cook and stir 2 minutes.
Drain tomatoes reserving liquid; pour liquid into measuring cup. Add water to measure 1 1/2 cups; pour over rice. [NOTE: The original ingredients had been scaled up and down in proportions but the 1 1/2 cups was embedded in text. From what we can tell, it is the measurement needed if you are using 1/2 lb of sausage. Adjust accordingly.] Add tomatoes; bring to boil. Cover and cook over low heat 20 minutes.Toss in the parsley, cover and cook for 5-10 more minutes until rice is done.
Again, this isn't authentic but for something that uses some packet mixes, it's pretty darned good.