More Recipes

Well, today I realized I didn't make it to posting a recipe yesterday.  So I technically owe you two today.  :) 

When I was little we had beans and cornbread almost every Sunday.  I liked it then, and have rediscovered it as an adult. But when my mom made a huge batch of chow chow relish and shared some pint jars with me, I realized what I had been missing in my own beans.  I never want to eat beans and cornbread without my mom's chow chow again. Luckily, I have the recipe she uses, so next time I can try to make it myself.  I don't know where she originally got her recipe for chow chow. So I'll share that along with my husband's aunt's recipe for cornbread.  I'll also share a soup bean recipe.  So really, that's three recipes, but they're all just for one meal.

Now you can use beans from either canned or dried, but if you use dried, just make sure you plan ahead and start it in a crock-pot that morning or cook it overnight.You have to rinse and soak the dry beans prior to cooking.

Let's start with the Soup Beans. Its a pretty simple and cheap meal. Dry beans are great food storage to have on hand. Beans are an excellent source of fiber and nutrients.  If you don't add ham to it, you would still get a complete protein as long as you paired it with the cornbread or another bread/grain. But the ham does add a lot of flavor.  The recipe below is from looking at this Southern Ham and Brown Beans from Allrecipes (https://www.allrecipes.com/recipe/40203/southern-ham-and-brown-beans/) and talking to my mom. There will be some notes.

In the notes you will see about boiling the ham prior.  I am fairly sensitive to salt.  Usually ham and sometimes french fries are so salty it feels like it burns my tongue.  I stopped using salt or reducing salt in my recipes a while back, so I believe that's where that came from.  Family history of hypertension (high blood pressure) made me want to watch the sodium and here we are. So boiling the ham works to help with that for me. I have no idea how much salt is left in the ham. But it still has salt in it and with how much salt ham usually contains, it is still likely a high salt food even after boiling.  Just making sure those who have to watch their salt intake don't get too excited here. On to the recipe.

Equipment: colander, large sauce pan, mixing spoon, cutting board, knife, large measuring cup or 1 cup measuring cup

Soup Beans

Ingredients:
1 lb dry pinto beans
1 medium to large onion, diced
2 cloves garlic minced
1 lb ham steak, cut into 1/2 in cubes
salt and pepper to taste

Process:
1) Sort through beans for any debris or rocks or "petrified" beans.
2) Rinse beans then put in large sauce pan and soak in 8 cups of water for at least about 8 hours.
3) Drain and rinse beans.
4) Sautee onions until they start to become translucent.  Add garlic, and sautee for 30 seconds more. 
5) Add beans to onions and garlic, then and add ham. Stir for about a minute.
6) Add enough water to cover beans with an inch of water above the top of the beans.
7) Bring to a boil, then lower temperature and simmer for about 2 hours or until beans are to your desired tenderness.
8) Add more water if water level gets down to the top of the beans before beans are tender.
9) Add salt and pepper to taste.

Notes: 
1)  To reduce sodium, you can boil the ham prior. The ham will still have a lot of sodium, so don't think it makes it a low-sodium food. It doesn't.
2)  My mom said if she boils the ham prior, she adds about 1 cup of the water the ham was boiled in back into the pot of beans for more flavor. 
3)  I sometimes add some ground mustard to my beans (to taste, I don't think I've ever measured it out). This is great if you don't have chow chow, as it has mustard in it, and want a little more flavor.
4)  If you use canned, drain and rinse beans and just start at Step 4.