Recipes

[Beebee2]

It's one of those coolish overcast gray Monday mornings, and I've put the beans in the crockpot. This is a recipe I've adapted from many sources; I label the recipes I've adapted or created as "My" recipes in my computer files so that I can find them easily.

There's usually some variation from time to time when I fix these beans. Today I have no ham bone, but a nice chunk of ham that I'd kept in the freezer for this purpose; also, I'm using just 1/2 green pepper as that's what I have and want to use quickly, and two short stalks of celery, the tough outer stalks that I keep primarily for cooking.

Not salting the beans until they're cooked is important, and I think the red pepper flakes are essential to the flavor outcome. If you fix the recipe, I hope you enjoy it! So many ways to flavor and enjoy beans!

My Red Beans and Rice

1 lb red kidney beans
1 lb salt pork or 1 smoked pork bone, Honey-baked ham bone, or other ham bone
2 cloves garlic
1 t Italian seasoning
1 bell pepper
1 chopped onion
1 stalk celery
1 whole hot pepper or 1/2 t crushed red pepper in tea mesh strainer

Soak beans in water overnight. Drain and rinse.

If using salt pork, boil it 5 min. to rid of salt. Put pork in second water (hot) and add beans; water should be one-half inch above beans. Add immediately: one bell pepper, one chopped onion, celery, garlic, Italian seasoning and hot pepper. Cook slowly two to three hours, until gravy is thick and beans tender - just before dishing out, add a pinch of Italian seasoning again. Salt to taste and serve with rice.

It is important not to add the salt during the cooking process. That would toughen the beans and ruin the dish. Also, don't put too much water or the gravy won't form (at least not until the beans have turned to mush). Just watch the beans to make sure they don't go dry. After they are brought to the boil initially, the temperature should be immediately reduced to about 3 on a scale of 1-10 so that they are just barely simmering.

It takes more seasoning than listed above to really flavor these beans. The crushed pepper really gives them zip, more Italian seasoning, and then when you salt them (if the ham bone hasn't been too big and meaty) put in a generous amount of salt 1/4-1/2 tsp won't be too much. Also check the recipes on the bag of beans to see how much salt they use for the whole bag, as a guideline.