Thursdays Are For Cooking….
15-bean mix pack
Bean Soup. Best dish ever, fills up all those empty corners, especially when served with some fresh cornbread or biscuits, and a side dish of pickles and fresh-cut veggies.
Plain Old Bean Soup
Slow method: soak a pound of mixed beans overnight, starting around 10PM. Make sure the beans are completely covered with water by about two inches. Check them around 10AM the next morning for floaters and discard any of those. Pour off the soaking water, using a sieve to catch any unruly runaway beans.
Fast method: One can each of a variety of canned beans, including black beans, pinto beans, cannellinis, navy beans, red beans (dark and light both), garbanzos and lentils, and whatever else you can find on the store shelves.
In a large pot, add the following:
One whole onion, chopped, or two if they’re smallish. 
1/2 of a bunch of celery, including the leaves. If you’re making a huge pot of this soup, use more celery. The more, the better.
1 pound of baby carrots or frozen chopped carrots
Chopped ham, leftover sausage or hamburger, sliced smoked sausage, smoked hog jowl (if you can get it – WMart carries it). If you have a ham bone, use that, too.
Equal parts chicken broth and beef broth. The canned or 14-oz boxed broth is fine.
Seasonings can include Mrs. Dash Garlic-Herb or Chili-Lime, cracked black pepper, sea salt, chopped or dried garlic, oregano, chives, chopped parsley, thyme, and a very small dash of chili powder. If you are monitoring your salt intake, beans have a high sodium content, so take that into account in choosing your seasonings.
Mix well, make sure the cooking liquid (broth) covers the beans by a minimum of a couple of inches. Cover the pot loosely, leaving enough room for the pot to vent without spilling over.
Simmer slowly on a low flame for several hours, occasionally checking to see how the beans are moving along. A good stir of the pot is appropriate. Also, when checking, if you need to add more cooking liquid, do so. This can also be fixed over a campfire, if you have a way to hang the pot or set the cooking pot off to the side.
About a half hour before you’re ready to sit down to this fabulous meal, fix a batch of cornbread or (if you have the recipe) cats-head biscuits, a side dish of cut-up veggies, a favorite beverage and a nice dessert.
Bon appetit!!!
Category: Economy
I am currently working on a batch of rye bread, using a combination of recipes from my old Fanny Farmer and Betty Crocker cookbooks.
Letting it go through first rise right now. Should be done in time for supper.
That there rye bread would go pretty good with the bean soup Graybeard. ‘specially right out of the oven, sliced and smeared up with some real butter.
Gots a mess of beans perculating lowly in the crockett pot as we speak. Found an orphan pack of country ham in the freezer locker and had him soaking all night in a separate container to draw off some of the salt. Threw it all together early this morning and been leaving it alone. Did stir it up a bit ago, more to release some of the scents and get the dogs attention.
Got an old school cast iron muffin pan for baking up some buttermilk corn pone. Still got us a little nip in the air down here at night. Not so cold I can’t have some of my home made cookies and neopolitan ice cream afterwards. Sister sent 4 dozen each of chocolate chip, peanut butter, snicker doodles, and ginger snaps.
Yum yum!
If you have some variety of the Instant Pot (I have the Cuisinart version) you can throw everything in there and cook on high pressure for an hour. No need to soak the beans or thaw out the ham bone or hocks.
You youngsters and your “insta” mentality. (smile)
It ain’t no good if it don’t take you at least all day to fix it.
And if you can’t cook it in cast-iron, it ain’t worth cookin’
Yum! Some hot Italian sausage is always a good addition, too.
Bean soup like this was a ‘sine qua non’ for years of camping trips with my old shipmate (CWO4-Gunner) after we retired. I miss him. He passed in ’13. (RIP, Gunner).
We always have a couple of bags on hand and also sealed in mylar for long term storage.
When doing the soak, I bring the soaking beans to a full boil, then turn the heat off and leave the pot to naturally cool.
Then the next morning I drain and rinse the beans.
With the new water I also add some chicken stock to the soup.
In winter I put the hot pot in my garage to cool overnight.
When the weather is warmer, after the pot of beans sits on the stove for awhile, I place a small fan to blow on the pot to cool to room temperature before putting the pot into the fridge for its overnight stay.
Oh, about a half hour before serving, I add about a half a pound of diced crispy bacon to the soup and about two tablespoons of the bacon grease to the soup.
It’s only a half a pound as I have a hard time frying a pound of bacon and not eating some.