Senate White Bean Soup!

  

This is called 'Senate' white bean soup, because it has been served in the United States Senate dining room for over 100 years and has always been a big favorite there.  This particular recipe was given to me by a dear lady years ago who was one of the best southern cooks I have ever known.  She and her husband served as the directors over the Southern Baptist Association in our county.  The summer after I graduated from college I worked at the missions office, as did my sister, and we really grew to love Reverend and Mrs. Tallant.   They were just wonderful people.  This soup always reminds me of them.

Mrs. Tallant would cook a nice lunch for everyone each day and we would all eat at the office there, because at night or in the afternoon, myself and two or three other girls would get in my little car and travel all over our county to the small rural churches and help them conduct their Bible schools.  It was a lot of fun, but it makes me tired just thinking about it now.  Needless to say, we needed those nourishing lunches.  

 This soup was something she would make for the monthly pastor's luncheon.   All of the ministers in the area would come together for a meeting once a month or sometimes twice and Mrs. Tallant would have a nice meal prepared for them.  I think that is what got a lot of them to the meeting actually.  This basic recipe makes quite a bit of soup for a family, but if you are feeding a crowd like she did, you can double it.  

 Here is what you'll need:

1 lb. navy or great northern beans

1 cup chopped celery

1 cup chopped onion

1/2 cup grated or shredded carrot

1 Tbs. minced garlic

1 ham hock or meaty ham bone

2 cups chopped ham (can use country ham or smoked ham)

1 Tbs. bacon drippings

1 tsp. salt

1 tsp. black pepper

2-3 drops of Tabasco sauce (optional)

Wash and sort the beans.  Place in your soup pot or dutch oven and cover with water about an inch over the top of the beans.  Bring to a boil.  Boil for just a few minutes.  Remove from the heat and drain well.  Place back in the pan with about 2 quarts of water.  Add the chopped celery, onion, garlic, and shredded carrot. Add the ham hock or ham bone and the bacon drippings.  Season with salt and black pepper.  Bring up to a boil then turn down to simmer and simmer covered for about an hour.

Add the chopped ham and cook for about 2 more hours on medium low heat.  Remove 2 cups of the beans and mash them with a fork and return to pot.  This just thickens the soup. Also, remove the ham hock or ham bone and trim any of the lean meat from it. Discard the fat and bone.  Cook for about 30 more minutes.  The soup should be nice and thick at this point.  Taste for seasoning, depending on what type of ham you used, you might need more salt.  If you used country ham, you probably won't need any additional salt.

Senate White Bean Soup!





Cowboy Baked Beans!

These baked beans are perfect for your holiday cookouts this summer.  They are a little hardier than just ordinary baked beans because they have ground beef in them.  They are usually one of the first dishes emptied at any potluck or picnic.  They have a good blend of sweet and spice to them and are a great side for grilled meats...hamburgers, hot dogs, even steaks and grilled chicken.

Brown ground beef, diced onion, and diced green pepper in pan.  Drain any excess grease.  Sprinkle with pepper, garlic powder, and salt. Add chili powder, ketchup, yellow mustard, Worcestershire sauce, brown sugar, and Coke.

Mix together and pour into a casserole dish sprayed with cooking spray. Top with bacon.  Place in a preheated 350 degree oven and cook for 45 minutes.

Beefy Baked Bean Bake!

Ingredients:

3/4 to 1lb ground beef

1/2 cup onion

1/2 cup green pepper

1 cup Ketchup

3/4 cup brown sugar

1/2 cup Coke (Diet or Regular)

1/2 tsp. black pepper

1/2 tsp. garlic powder

1/2 tsp. salt

1 tsp. chili powder

1 Tbs. Worcestershire sauce

1 tsp. yellow mustard

3-4 slices bacon

2  15 oz cans pork and beans undrained





Spicy Barbequed Beans!

These barbeque beans are very different than your run of the mill baked beans.  They are less sweet than baked beans and a lot spicier.   They are also very meaty and filling and men seem to really like them, probably for that reason.  

 They are the perfect side for any type of barbecue meat and you will need some of your barbecue meat for the beans, so coordinate making these when you barbecue.  These beans are perfect with the Slow Cooker Pulled Pork in Coca Cola Barbeque Sauce.  You will need about 2 cups of the pork chopped for the beans.  You can also used chopped beef brisket.  They are also good served over Cornbread Hoecakes.   

 Here's what  you will need to make these beans:

Ingredients

1 28 oz. can Busch Homestyle Baked Beans (do not drain)

2 cans Ranch Beans (do not drain)

2 cups chopped barbequed pork or beef (I like to use the end pieces)

1 cup chopped onion (I used Vidalia, but any sweet onion will do)

1/2 cup brown sugar

1 cup of your favorite barbeque sauce

1/2 cup ketchup

1 cup Coca Cola (Diet or Regular will work)

1 tsp. yellow mustard

1 tsp. chili powder

2 Tbs. Worcestershire sauce

1/3 cup pickled jalapeno peppers, chopped

3 or 4 dashes of Tabasco sauce (optional, leave this out if you don't like too much heat)

Spray a 2 quart casserole dish with nonstick cooking spray.  Pour the beans, undrained, and all of the other ingredients except the meat in the dish and mix together.

 Add the pulled pork or brisket and mix in.

These are the Ranch beans that I use.  They are in a sauce that really gives these beans a good flavor.  They can be a little hard to find here and may not be available in your area.  If you can't find them, you can substitute 2 cans of chili beans in sauce.

Place the casserole dish in a preheated 350 degree oven for 45 minutes.  Give the beans a stir about half way through the cooking time.

Brown Sugar Baked Beans!

I just realized the other day that I had not posted a recipe for traditional baked beans.  I had posted my Beefy Baked Bean Bake and my Spicy Barbeque Beans, and while they are both really good, they are very different than just classic baked beans.    I love good baked beans, but baked beans tend to fall in the same category as meatloaf and cornbread...everybody in the South makes them, but very few make them that turn out great! 

 I have been to my share of church potlucks, after funeral dinners, and other gatherings where baked beans make a usual appearance and have sampled many.    Here is what I usually notice that goes wrong... cooked way too long, cooked way too little, too little seasoning and brown sugar, too much 'stuff' in them, no bacon for seasoning, way too dry, and that is just a few.  

Here is what you will need for these baked beans:

4  (15oz.) cans of pork and beans (I prefer Campbell's)  or 2  (28 oz.) cans baked beans (like Busch Baked Beans)   Do not drain.

1 1/2  cups ketchup 

1 cup brown sugar

1/4 cup real maple syrup

2 Tbs. Worcestershire sauce

1 Tbs. yellow mustard

dash of Tabasco sauce

1/2 cup sweet onion, diced fine

4-5 slices of bacon, uncooked

Spray a 2  1/2  or 3 quart casserole with nonstick spray.   Mix the ketchup, brown sugar, maple syrup, Worcestershire sauce, yellow mustard, and Tabasco sauce.  If you don't have real maple syrup, use what you have, but the real syrup is best for the flavoring.

 Mix with the beans (undrained) and then stir in the diced onion.  I do remove any of the 'pork' or whatever that is in the can of beans.  There is usually 1 piece of fatty looking meat in each can.

Place in the casserole dish and lay the uncooked bacon over the top.

Place in a 350 degree oven for 55 minutes to an hour.  Remove from oven.  If you want to keep warm, cover tightly with foil or the glass casserole lid.  Baked beans dry out fast if left uncovered, especially in the oven, even if it's off.  I am convinced this is where a lot of good baked beans are ruined. 

This makes a nice size dish of baked beans for company or to take to a cookout, if you are making baked beans for a smaller family, just make half of this recipe.

   



Slow Cooker Chuck Wagon Beans!

 

This is an old recipe that my mother used to make when we had a busy day ahead and she knew she wouldn't have time to be in the kitchen a lot.  I remember having this on Sundays sometimes after church, in the afternoon, because it was something she could have ready when we got home.   Even though this is similar to chili, it's more like a bean stew, if that makes sense.  It tends to be thicker and more like cooked beans.

 If you add cornbread to this, it makes a good meal though.   Put it all in the slow cooker the night before and dinner is ready for the next day.

 Here is what you will need:

4 cups dried pinto beans, uncooked (washed and sorted)
9 cups water
1 large (29 oz.) can of crushed tomatoes
1 (10oz.) can Rotel tomatoes with green chilies
1 large onion, diced (about 1 cup)
1 green bell pepper diced
1 Tbs. minced garlic
1 Tb. bacon drippings
1 tsp. salt
1/2 tsp. black pepper
1/2 tsp. seasoned salt
1 Tbs. chili powder
1/2 - 1 tsp. hot sauce (I used Tabasco)
1 1/2 -2 lbs. ground chuck

Garnish
2 cups cheddar cheese, shredded
Vidalia onion, diced or green onion


Make sure to wash and sort through the beans, picking out any rocks or shriveled beans.  Place the beans, water and all of the other ingredients except the ground chuck in a large slow cooker (at least 5-6 quart).   Brown the ground chuck in a skillet on the stove and drain.  Place it in the slow cooker with the other ingredients.   Set on low and cook for 8-10 hours.   At the end of the cooking time taste for seasoning.  This might need a tad more salt or hot sauce according to your preference.
 

Some of the myths about cooking dried beans both in the slow cooker and on the stove...like they have to be soaked overnight and you cannot salt them before they are cooked or they will never get soft, are just that myths.  You can presoak beans and it does lessen the cooking time, but in a slow cooker it really makes very little difference. 

If I am cooking them on the stove I like to bring them to a boil for a few minutes and then drain the water, add new cold water and start them from there.  This does remove some of their more...uh, explosive properties, if you know what I mean...lol.   The one about not salting, I have no idea where that came from, because it's absolutely not true and I actually think they are hard to salt and get tasty after they have cooked and are best when salted from the start.
 

This is a really good meal when served with cornbread and either the Cornbread Hoe Cakes or Aunt Vel's Sour Cream Cornbread are the perfect choices!

Garnish with chopped Vidalia onion and shredded cheddar cheese!

Chuck Wagon Beans!

Southern Ham and Beans!

In this part of the south when we cook beans, we usually cook pintos or white beans (which can be great northerns or navy beans) or a mixture of the two.   These are our equivalent to the dried red beans they cook in the deep south (Louisiana, Mississippi).  Cooking beans is just like making sweet tea and cornbread, there are many different recipes and methods, depending on how your mama or grandma or whoever taught you to cook did it.   Therefore, I am not saying this is the only way to cook a pot of beans, but it is the way I cook them and the way we like them.

So much about southern cuisine is criticized as being 'not healthy' these days, sometimes unfairly and sometimes accurately,  and now there are such trends as 'meatless Mondays' and not eating meat, it's sort of funny to a lot of older southerners who can remember not only "Meatless Mondays" but meatless Tuesdays and Wednesdays and Thursdays, heck maybe meatless weeks at a time.  Southern folks learned a long time ago to make it on what they had and meat wasn't always part of that situation.   What they did have most of the time was dried beans and maybe some ham hocks (maybe) or some bacon grease or some lard...some sort of meat grease.   The ham hocks or bits of actual country ham would be a special pot of beans back in my grandmother's day, but she had a spoonful of bacon grease or lard to drop in them or a  little jowl bacon and that would season them up nicely too.  In my humble opinion, you cannot cook dried beans without some form of meat seasoning, even if it is just a spoonful of bacon grease.   It just makes all of the difference in the world.

Nowadays, I almost always put some form of ham or such in my beans, not a half a hog or anything but some, because we eat ham and beans as our main course much of the time along with cornbread, potatoes of some kind, maybe some greens, Vidalia onion, relish...you get the picture...lol.  The beans are not usually served alone.   I am finding that cooking dried beans is becoming a lost art with the younger crowd, at least those I know, and that concerns me.  Beans are great source of protein and fiber, calcium, and iron and so many good things and they are inexpensive.  Let's teach our children to cook! 

Now, let's cook some beans!   First, decide what kind you will cook.  I cook them all, but on this day I cooked mixed beans, pinto and great northerns.   This method will work for pintos or white beans.  Pintos do take a little longer to cook than white varieties do.   

This is what I used in this pot of beans:

1 lb mixed dried beans (pintos and great northerns)

1 Tbs. salt  (taste for seasoning when done and add more if needed to your taste and depending on what type of meat you put in the beans)

1 tsp. black pepper

1/2 tsp. garlic powder (optional)

1 Tbs. bacon drippings

2 cups chopped country ham pieces (or you could use a cut up ham steak if you cannot get country ham or don't care for it)

OPTIONAL:  You can use two smoked ham hocks in place of the chopped ham pieces, if you do, you can omit the bacon drippings because of the fat content in the ham hocks)

Place the beans one handful at a time in a colander in the sink.  Pick through them as you put them in the colander and pick out any little rocks or shriveled beans.  Run water over the beans to wash them off really well.  Beans that you get now are fairly clean, but I still like to wash them off well and pick through them, because you do find a little rock now and then and it's not pleasant to bite into those.

Place the beans in a deep pan.  I like to use my cast iron dutch oven, it cooks beans so well. Cover with water about 2 inches above the beans.  Bring to a boil.  Boil for about 2 minutes.  Watch carefully so they don't boil over. Carefully pour this water off of the beans and then cover with fresh water to about 2 inches above the beans.  Bring them to a boil once again and then turn down to a low simmer.  Add the salt, pepper, garlic powder,  and bacon drippings at this point.  Some say not to salt beans until they are done, because they will stay hard and won't get done as fast.  I have never had that experience so I am not sure why some people say that and I think they season best if seasoned early in the cooking.   OPTIONAL:  Some soak their beans in water overnight and then pour that off and start from there.  It does make cooking time a little shorter, but I prefer the quicker method of boiling and then pouring the water off.  It seems to reduce the bean's, ummm explosive after effects, if you know what I mean...lol.  

I like to let the beans cook for about 2 hours and then add in the chopped ham and cook them for at least another 2 hours. Add water at this point if the beans have soaked up too much water.   This is not a quick dish, but it is fairly carefree once you get it on.  Just be sure to check your beans about every hour and see if you need to add water. They will soak up the water like crazy and there is nothing that is worse than a scorched pot of beans.   If you are using ham hocks instead of the chopped ham, put them in at the very beginning because they need all of that cooking time to get them tender.  At close to the end of the cooking time, take the ham hocks out of the pot and let them cool enough to take the lean meat off the bone to add back to the pot.  Discard the bone and fat.

If you are using ham hocks, look for ham hocks that are meaty and that you can see some good lean meat on.  If you shop where there is an actual butcher (I know it's rare these days) and they don't have good packaged ham hocks, ask the butcher if he has some good meaty hocks in the back.  

When the beans are done, taste for seasoning and add accordingly.  If you used ham hocks, you might not need as much salt due to their high salt content.



  



Red Beans and Rice...Cajun Comfort Food!

Red beans and rice is not a dish people in Kentucky grow up eating, unless they have parents from the deep south (Louisiana/Mississippi region).   We do eat a lot of beans in Kentucky, but mostly pintos or white beans, like navy or great northern.   

 For me, my introduction to red beans came early, because my father has family in Mississippi and we visited there on family vacations sometimes.   I remember my Aunt Tootsie (yes, I did say Tootsie...lol)  saying she was going to have to "fix us red beans and rice before we went home" and me thinking how that sounded odd, but interesting. 

 As a child, when we visited anyplace, I always worried about the food and what we would be served.  From past experience, it could go well or  make for a long trip if  the hosts were bad cooks or served weird things. My aunt had been raised in Kentucky and Tennessee, but still spent most of her adult life in Mississippi, so her cooking.. a mixture of the two... was really good. 

 When the red beans and rice were finally served,  I was skeptical, but they smelled so good.  We had already had the rice experience as far as having rice in place of potatoes, even with roast beef and gravy which was odd, but good. I am not sure most people this near the Mason Dixon line could get used to gravy over rice though...too many Scotch-Irish folks...lol.   

 I gave the beans a try and to my delight, they were something I really liked.  If your family doesn't like red beans, substitute pinto beans and use this same recipe...it's different, but so good!

 I never thought  about it growing up, but we never had them at home, once back in Kentucky.  My mother finally admitted to me, not long ago, that she really doesn't like red beans.  Guess that explains it! 

 I love all Cajun food and I get weird cravings for it.  Yesterday, I had to have red beans and rice.  Sometimes, Zatarain's is the best I can do, but this time I wanted something more home cooked than that.  I make red beans in the slow cooker, because they are actually just as good done this way and easy as can be. 

Here is what you will need:

Dried red beans, ham hock, green pepper, onion, celery, garlic, smoked sausage, Tony Chachere's seasoning, pepper, and salt.

Ingredients:

1 lb dried red kidney beans

1 ham hock (use 2 if you like a lot of ham)

1 pkg smoked sausage of your choice

1 cup chopped onion

1 cup chopped green pepper

1 cup chopped celery

1 Tbs chopped garlic

1 Tbs bacon grease

1/2 Tbs. Tony Chachere's seasoning

1/2 tsp. black pepper

1/2 tsp. salt (optional)

10 cups water (after a couple of hours add a little more if needed, the beans will swell and absorb a lot of liquid)

dash of Tabasco sauce (optional)



Wash and rinse the beans and place in crock pot with the ham hock which has been rinsed off also.  Diced celery, green pepper, and onion (the cajun Trinity) and pour over all.  Slice smoked sausage and place on top.   Add garic, pepper, and Tony Chachere's Seasoning.  Add 10 cups of water and set on low to cook over night (8-10 hours).  Remove the ham hock to cool and then pick the lean meat off of it and add it back to the pot.  Taste for seasoning before adding the salt, because the meats and cajun seasoning are salty and you might not need additional salt. 

Cook some white rice and I like to put a scoop right in the middle of the bowl and ladle the beans over.  It's so good!