Thursdays Are For Cooking
15-bean mix pack
Plain Old Bean Soup
This one is easy. If you want it quickly, use canned beans. If you want to start the night before, use dry beans, which are considerably cheaper at $1.89 for a bagful than the canned version at $1.90 to $2.50/can, depending on where you are and what you purchase.
Ingredients:
One pack of mixed beans – soak overnight, starting at 8 PM or 9 PM, in a large pot, covered with water. Check them in the morning. They should all be inflated and ready to cook. Remove any floaters. Pour off the water, rinse again, and return the pot to the stove.
If you prefer the canned beans because it’s quicker:
1 can each of black beans, Great Northerns, dark red kidney beans, light red kidney beans, navy beans, cannellinis, lim beans, pinto beans – in short, use as many varieties as you can find.
Some ham, diced, chopped or minced in the Cuisinart thingy.
Optional: a small amount of smoked salt pork to go with the ham
1 large onion of your choice, chopped
Celery – yes, the entire stalk can be used, including the leaves, cut coarse or thin – your choice, and you can use less celery if you want to keep sodium content low.
Carrots – I find that half of a 1-lb bag of baby carrots is just fine for this
Oregano – about what will fit in the cupped palm of your hand, or a dessert spoon. Use less if you don’t like oregano.
Chopped garlic or two tablespoons of garlic powder (this is optional)
A very small amount of either chili powder or cumin is optional, your choice
Tomatoes are also optional; I’d use the diced canned versions.
Mrs. Dash Garlic & Herb – this is if you are trying to keep salt usage low. Contains no salt, but dried lemon bumps up the flavor considerably, and this has a lot of coarse black pepper in it
Put all of that into the pot with the beans, then add equal parts chicken broth and beef broth to fill the pot to about 1.5 inches below the pot rim.
Again, with the broth, if you are trying to control your salt intake, use the low sodium versions.
Cover and cook on low. Keep checking on it, and yes, you are allowed to sample it from time to time.
Cornbread goes well with this, as do fresh, cut-up veggies, and a nice dessert – maybe pumpkin pie with whipped cream?
Category: Economy
Sounds good, Ex. An excellent Winter dish. Thank You for sharing again your recipes.
Go Navy Beans! That’s B-E-A-N-S, AW1Ed…😉
And Lima Beans with Ham, AKA MFs, one of Claw’s and Spark’s favorite, with warm Fresca…😄
goarmybeatnavy😎
‘Sal good, AP. While you doggies are hunkered down in muddy holes in the ground enjoying your Ham and MoFos, on the boat I’ll have three hots (four, with midrats) and a cot, or even better in the barracks with steaks on the grill, figuring out how to spend my per diem.
Go Navy!
😅😂🤣😆
The Navy always makes me chuckle. And I plan to do alot of chuckling this Saturday, 9 December 2018, starting at 1500 hours EST, eating smoked sausage courtesy of Ex-PH2’s recipe, watching the World’s greatest Army and Navy Football teams compete against each other… 😉
goarmybeatnavy 😎
Don’t mean to hijack this thread of a great bean soup dish, but since you mentioned it…
GO ARMY!!!!!
Dustoff:
HOO-AAHH!!!!
goarmybeatnavy
I did GO and put some NAVY BEANS in the veggie beef soup I started on evening last. Cheated a bit in the cooking thereof. Used some of the cubed steak I had crockeded potted from the other day with some of the beef stock. Had purposely made more of the beef for this project. The other had gotten seasoned up for going over rice dish. Also cheated and used up some frozen mixed veggies and the beans was canned. Also use the diced tomatoes (2) cans, and a can of tomato sauce. A can of whole kernel corn, cut green beans, a handful of squiggly pasta, 5 medium russets (peeled and diced), and some whole baby carrots.
It percurlated on warm all night and just smelled up the whole house. A cast iron skillet of buttermilk cornbread came out of the oven ’bout an hour ago. Slabs of the buttered cornbread jumped into a double bowl of the soup. It hurt me.
I’ll usually do up about a 10 qt stock pot, eat my fill & then put up the rest of it in qt freezer bags for freezing. Comes in handy when I don’t want to do any cooking.
Got my ham bone from the Thanksgiving ham in the freezer. Gonna pick up a package of the 15 bean mix at the K Roger tomorrow. Will try this recipe Saturday night.
Will be having my re-heated chili with bacon wrapped little smokies during The Game Saturday afternoon. Will be a fresh skillet of cornbread for that.
goarmybeatnavy…..GO NAVY.BEANS.WITH.HAMBONE
Love you all like brothers, 364 days of the year. But that one day in December…
Go Navy Beat Army!
OK, y’all. While all y’all are cookin’ away wherever youse guys may be, Imma watching the boob tube. Watching the last train ride of George Bush, United States President, and my CinC during Desert Storm.
All I can do is stay choked up, so proud to have served under this great man. The services have been grand. Every detail just about perfect.
Now, I pray that the lefty lunatics are also watching as ordinary Americans line the train route paying their respects in various ways. At least a few of them will be amazed at the sight of so many Americans, those that they so casually discount, and that these represent many more millions of ordinary Americans. Perhaps some of them will learn something significant from this experience.
A very somber day so far. Still, there is also something hopeful about it. The message of service, love of country, and the strength of family has be inescapable the past few days.
OWB commented:
“At least a few of them will be amazed at the sight of so many Americans, those that they so casually discount, and that these represent many more millions of ordinary Americans.”
So true, OWB. So true.
Thank You for those words.
Been right there with ya OWB. I don’t have cable, antenna broadcast only. The local CBS has been back and forth, keeping tenuous coverage of the program’s events. They will pop back and forth to the train and I’m hoping that it will all go back live when the train gets to College Station.
The hypocrites and the Trump bashers are still out in force.
At least they have only a single camera feed to use. Somebody was genius in arranging that.
Fox has done quite well in quieting their talkers during significant times when their silence is necessary. Haven’t had to switch over to CSPAN much to get the simple pics without constant chatter.
And, of course, shortly after writing that, Fox got super chatty. So disrespectful. Would have enjoyed the telephone conversation with Robert Dole more if it had been done a bit earlier.
Local CBS shut off the syndicated crap for some shots of the arrival from the train to the College. Their camera man blew the shot of the missing man take off. The Naval Aviation Troops did a fine job on the flyby. You’d thought, the camera set up would’ve been better. I’ll poke around on the www later tonight & see if I can find a better shot.
Sister showed me a linkie/cartoon of an MSM reporter and Pres. Bush in interview. Pres. Bush had devil horns on his head. The next panel showed an MSM reporter speaking to a superimposed casket and Pres Bush with a halo.
Very similar to my camping trip beans. Instead of ham, I use hot Italian sausage cut up in bite sized pieces along with salt pork.
Delicious!!!
Speaking of GO NAVY BEANS:
Check out the Navy’s Uniform for this weekend’s game, honoring Bill the Goat. Love the gloves!
https://ftw.usatoday.com/2018/10/navy-unveils-spectacular-uniforms-inspired-by-bill-the-goat-for-army-game
About 2 WOTs ago, I kidded Commissioner Wretched about Goats being etched on the heads of Naval Cadets Football players. Well whadda know! There you go, CW!
Now that I made a free advertisement for the Navy, it is STILL goarmybeatnavy😎
“Very pretty, Colonel, Very pretty. But can they fight?”
*Donald Sutherland, “Dirty Dozen”*
https://youtu.be/AQdpR-Uu3sw
goarmybeatnavy😎
Best scene in a great movie!
This is one of our short-days standards. Re-hydrated beans have better flavor than frozen or canned beans so the overnight soak is the only way we do them. I add at least a 1 tsp of oil to the soak water as it helps to keep the skins from coming off the beans.
Using 1 Tsp would be Ok depending on what else you add to the mix. Smoked pork shoulders are a good way to concoct the stock. I bone out the shoulder and then boil the bones and rind for a couple of minutes before simmering to render the flavors.
A pressure cooker is the short path to a wonderful soup in about 35 minutes but the conventional method is just as good.
Quarter a small potato and add it to the mix, you can then use it to regulate the consistency of the broth by making a puree of soup stock, potato and some of the beans and then stirring them back into the soup.
The remainder of the “ham” can be used in a variety of ways for additional soup recipes, red beans, ham salad, omelets, grilled ham & cheese sammich or even as ham!
Bean soup was a staple around our fire department.
I used 2 pounds of seasoned ground deer and a chopped large Cajun sausage for the added meat with 2 bags of the dried beans. Added in a couple coarse chopped onions and 1 green pepper. After the beans were cooked I would add a cup of wild rice, it was ready to serve when the rice was done.
The sh@t you put up with sometime. I hope you have a merry Christmas.
Always an appreciative fan,
Randy
Well, thank you, Mr. Pete. That’s sweet of you. You have a very Merry Christmas, yourself.
FWIW, this one’s hella good for cold winter days too.
https://www.bettycrocker.com/recipes/slow-cooker-easy-italian-sausage-vegetable-soup/c5cf096b-e8e8-416e-9d7e-12fcd387172e