Like I said in my last post, we switched around Day 2 and 3 of the Meal Plan. Yesterday we had the sloppy joes, so today we're having soup beans, corn bread and mustard greens.
If you're from the South, you know what soup beans are. I don't think they're as much of a thing elsewhere in the country. I figured I'd tell you how I make them, which is the recipe my sister gave me, which is exactly how Mom made them. She cooked with Mom a lot more than I did and knows how she made lots of the dishes I grew up with. I had such a case of ADHD that I never stayed in the kitchen long enough to learn a dang thing, and I thought I was so smart, I didn't need to learn anything from my mother. I was so incredibly stupid, y'all. Listen to your moms and learn the family recipes before it's too late. I am SO thankful for my sister and her keeping these recipes (mostly in her head!)
So, you start with 3 cups of dried beans - and these need to be a mix of pinto beans and white beans. Local stores, here anyway, carry bags of them already mixed. Look through the beans handful by handful taking out any little rocks or bad looking beans. Once sorted, rinse them off really well to get any dust and dirt off of them. Then put them into a good size stock pot or Dutch oven pot. Add 7 cups of cold water and then the special ingredient, some kind of fat... Now this can be a few different things depending on your dietary restrictions or choices. For healthier, vegan beans, add 2 TBSP of coconut oil. I've never made them with that, but my sister went vegan, and she likes it. You can also add 2 TBSP of bacon grease. I simply do not cook enough bacon to have a little crock of bacon grease sitting around like my Granny did, so what I do is sort of a variation on the most traditional addition to the beans. The traditional addition is a 4 inch piece of pork side meat, but I use a slice of bacon instead. Now, if it's a really thin slice, I'll add 1 1/2 slices. Thick cut bacon would be better. Bacon is just easier to find, and I'm more likely to have it on hand if I get the urge to randomly make a pot of soup beans.
Ok, so once you have the beans, water and fat in the pot, put it on heat until it comes to a full rolling boil. Then turn down the heat and cover it for 3 hours. Do not add salt. Salt will make the beans stay hard longer. You can add it later. Stir the beans now and then, making sure to add more water as it starts to disappear. For my pot of beans this time, I ended up adding 4-5 more cups of water over the course of 3 hours. I know it was at least 4, but might have been 5, I can't recall for sure. Depending on what you added for the fat, (again I haven't used the coconut oil), your house will smell SO GOOD for those 3 hours.
But anyway, when it's done, it'll look like this...
When the 3 hours are up and it has the consistency you want, turn off the heat and add your salt. The amount is personal preference. I usually add like a tsp or 2, but then let people add their own individually. We don't use much salt at all in this house, so while it tastes perfect to us, it's probably bland to other people, especially in the South. I also add black pepper. Then just mix it up well.
Everyone seems to eat theirs differently. I used to eat mine with just a pat of butter in the middle and let it melt all through it, but the older I got, the more I liked adding some chopped onion, and if I have any, a spoonful or two of greens (with or without vinegar).
This is the first bowl I had right after they were done before I went to bed. They smelled so good, I couldn't resist.
My husband likes to completely cover his with crumbled up corn bread. I'm not as big a fan of that, because I like the "soup" part of it. He hates soup and says if he can't chew his food, then it's not really food. (That totally does not stop me from making my veggie soup though). I've seen people add banana peppers, or chow chow or sriracha, pretty much anything. It's a very personal dish.
I grew up with a pot of soup beans on the stove at all times. There was always food. Mom would keep a pot on the back eye and heat it up as needed. It never went bad, because it didn't have time to. Either we ate it or people dropping by all the time would have a bowl. She would make a pan of corn bread and just leave it cut up in wedges on the stove, for anyone to eat. If it started getting low or old, she'd toss what was left in the pot out to the birds in the back yard (we had a flock of crows that loved our back yard). Then she'd wash the pot and start a new batch.
When I got married, I did not continue this tradition. Two reasons. One was that I never learned how to make them, and was too proud to ask Mom. To be honest, the tone of voice she would have used when telling me the recipe was not one I wanted to hear, so I just never asked. And two, my husband hated both beans and soup. He has certainly mellowed and changed his likes over the years, and certainly appreciates a bowl now as long as there's a lot of corn bread, but back then, there was no way. So, my own girls did not grow up with soup beans on the stove all the time. And I really wish they had. I wish they'd had that available. There were days long ago, when I wasn't sure what we were going to feed the kids, but a bag of dried beans and a little bit of pork could have gone a long long way.
In this new phase of our lives where we're sort of back to square one with needing to live more like we did back in those dark days, this time we're going to be smarter about it. I think I'm going to try to always have a pot of soup beans either on the stove or in the fridge ready to heat up. This new low budget - mostly no-meat diet is going to be difficult at first, so having a pot of comfort food available will help a lot.
This was my bowl I had for dinner (my breakfast technically) after I woke up. I just set the pot back on the heat and added a little water, since the beans continue to soak up the liquid, and I didn't want to lose that "soup". Then just heated up a can of mixed greens and chopped an onion. I did add vinegar to my greens. It gives the whole dish an extra tang.
The kiddo has made a proclamation tonight that they hate soup beans and will wither and die on this diet LOL. So, yeah I'll definitely have to get a bag of chicken nuggets or something just for them, and make sure it stretches the entire time. I'm sure they'll learn to like some of the dishes, but for nights like this, they can have the nuggets. One more reason I wish they'd grown up with this food. It's sad to think they don't enjoy it as much as I do. I'm sure all regions of the world have things like that though.
Oh, and my husband just told me before he went to bed, that the soupbeans were very yummy and he loved them! Tastes sure change.
Ok, I guess that's more than anyone ever really needs to say about a mixture of beans, water and fat lol!
Tomorrow is the big day when we go refinance that big loan and try to get a lower monthly payment (and skip December!), and then go grocery shopping and actually see if we can make this work. I'll have my hubby and kiddo with me, and we'll make this a challenge to see how much money we can still have left over in the budget after getting everything on the list. I hope there WILL be money left over! If it starts getting to close to the top of the budget and we still need to buy things, then I'll have to do a regroup right there in the store and decide what has to go back, and rethink things. So, I am really hoping that doesn't happen. And then, it'll be back home to prep as much of it as we can.
Thanks for reading! I hope you'll join me again.
Patty
If you're from the South, you know what soup beans are. I don't think they're as much of a thing elsewhere in the country. I figured I'd tell you how I make them, which is the recipe my sister gave me, which is exactly how Mom made them. She cooked with Mom a lot more than I did and knows how she made lots of the dishes I grew up with. I had such a case of ADHD that I never stayed in the kitchen long enough to learn a dang thing, and I thought I was so smart, I didn't need to learn anything from my mother. I was so incredibly stupid, y'all. Listen to your moms and learn the family recipes before it's too late. I am SO thankful for my sister and her keeping these recipes (mostly in her head!)
So, you start with 3 cups of dried beans - and these need to be a mix of pinto beans and white beans. Local stores, here anyway, carry bags of them already mixed. Look through the beans handful by handful taking out any little rocks or bad looking beans. Once sorted, rinse them off really well to get any dust and dirt off of them. Then put them into a good size stock pot or Dutch oven pot. Add 7 cups of cold water and then the special ingredient, some kind of fat... Now this can be a few different things depending on your dietary restrictions or choices. For healthier, vegan beans, add 2 TBSP of coconut oil. I've never made them with that, but my sister went vegan, and she likes it. You can also add 2 TBSP of bacon grease. I simply do not cook enough bacon to have a little crock of bacon grease sitting around like my Granny did, so what I do is sort of a variation on the most traditional addition to the beans. The traditional addition is a 4 inch piece of pork side meat, but I use a slice of bacon instead. Now, if it's a really thin slice, I'll add 1 1/2 slices. Thick cut bacon would be better. Bacon is just easier to find, and I'm more likely to have it on hand if I get the urge to randomly make a pot of soup beans.
Ok, so once you have the beans, water and fat in the pot, put it on heat until it comes to a full rolling boil. Then turn down the heat and cover it for 3 hours. Do not add salt. Salt will make the beans stay hard longer. You can add it later. Stir the beans now and then, making sure to add more water as it starts to disappear. For my pot of beans this time, I ended up adding 4-5 more cups of water over the course of 3 hours. I know it was at least 4, but might have been 5, I can't recall for sure. Depending on what you added for the fat, (again I haven't used the coconut oil), your house will smell SO GOOD for those 3 hours.
But anyway, when it's done, it'll look like this...
When the 3 hours are up and it has the consistency you want, turn off the heat and add your salt. The amount is personal preference. I usually add like a tsp or 2, but then let people add their own individually. We don't use much salt at all in this house, so while it tastes perfect to us, it's probably bland to other people, especially in the South. I also add black pepper. Then just mix it up well.
Everyone seems to eat theirs differently. I used to eat mine with just a pat of butter in the middle and let it melt all through it, but the older I got, the more I liked adding some chopped onion, and if I have any, a spoonful or two of greens (with or without vinegar).
This is the first bowl I had right after they were done before I went to bed. They smelled so good, I couldn't resist.
My husband likes to completely cover his with crumbled up corn bread. I'm not as big a fan of that, because I like the "soup" part of it. He hates soup and says if he can't chew his food, then it's not really food. (That totally does not stop me from making my veggie soup though). I've seen people add banana peppers, or chow chow or sriracha, pretty much anything. It's a very personal dish.
I grew up with a pot of soup beans on the stove at all times. There was always food. Mom would keep a pot on the back eye and heat it up as needed. It never went bad, because it didn't have time to. Either we ate it or people dropping by all the time would have a bowl. She would make a pan of corn bread and just leave it cut up in wedges on the stove, for anyone to eat. If it started getting low or old, she'd toss what was left in the pot out to the birds in the back yard (we had a flock of crows that loved our back yard). Then she'd wash the pot and start a new batch.
When I got married, I did not continue this tradition. Two reasons. One was that I never learned how to make them, and was too proud to ask Mom. To be honest, the tone of voice she would have used when telling me the recipe was not one I wanted to hear, so I just never asked. And two, my husband hated both beans and soup. He has certainly mellowed and changed his likes over the years, and certainly appreciates a bowl now as long as there's a lot of corn bread, but back then, there was no way. So, my own girls did not grow up with soup beans on the stove all the time. And I really wish they had. I wish they'd had that available. There were days long ago, when I wasn't sure what we were going to feed the kids, but a bag of dried beans and a little bit of pork could have gone a long long way.
In this new phase of our lives where we're sort of back to square one with needing to live more like we did back in those dark days, this time we're going to be smarter about it. I think I'm going to try to always have a pot of soup beans either on the stove or in the fridge ready to heat up. This new low budget - mostly no-meat diet is going to be difficult at first, so having a pot of comfort food available will help a lot.
This was my bowl I had for dinner (my breakfast technically) after I woke up. I just set the pot back on the heat and added a little water, since the beans continue to soak up the liquid, and I didn't want to lose that "soup". Then just heated up a can of mixed greens and chopped an onion. I did add vinegar to my greens. It gives the whole dish an extra tang.
The kiddo has made a proclamation tonight that they hate soup beans and will wither and die on this diet LOL. So, yeah I'll definitely have to get a bag of chicken nuggets or something just for them, and make sure it stretches the entire time. I'm sure they'll learn to like some of the dishes, but for nights like this, they can have the nuggets. One more reason I wish they'd grown up with this food. It's sad to think they don't enjoy it as much as I do. I'm sure all regions of the world have things like that though.
Oh, and my husband just told me before he went to bed, that the soupbeans were very yummy and he loved them! Tastes sure change.
Ok, I guess that's more than anyone ever really needs to say about a mixture of beans, water and fat lol!
Tomorrow is the big day when we go refinance that big loan and try to get a lower monthly payment (and skip December!), and then go grocery shopping and actually see if we can make this work. I'll have my hubby and kiddo with me, and we'll make this a challenge to see how much money we can still have left over in the budget after getting everything on the list. I hope there WILL be money left over! If it starts getting to close to the top of the budget and we still need to buy things, then I'll have to do a regroup right there in the store and decide what has to go back, and rethink things. So, I am really hoping that doesn't happen. And then, it'll be back home to prep as much of it as we can.
Thanks for reading! I hope you'll join me again.
Patty
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I love getting comments, and I read every one. Thanks for coming by my site and reading my ramblings. I hope you have a wonderful day! -Patty