What did you do in the garden today?

[pennyJo1960]

This is the original recipe I got. I cook mine far longer and it will keep developing deeper richer flavor if you do.

Cuban Style Black Bean Soup

Recipe By: the Kitchn
Serving Size: 8

This is an interpretation of a Cuban recipe. I’ve modified the Kitchn’s recipe according to the comments of some Cuban readers. Apparently, a proper Cuban uses ham hocks with red bean soup but not black bean soup. Still, it sounds so good and I love black beans I left them in.

Another thing they all noted is that it should begin with a proper sofrito and have cumin and oregano. Some say cilantro is Mexican and not Cuban. And many said no peppers because heat is not a feature of Cuban food. I added jalapeño but I’m careful to eliminate the heat by seeding and deveining the flesh first.

Cubans serve this with white rice and the soup is poured over it.

In the future if I go more “style” than “Cuban” diced tomato and a bit of dark beer sound good to me too.

1 lb. dried black beans

SOFRITO
2 tablespoons olive oil
1 red bell pepper, finely chopped
1 jalapeño, seeded, de-veined and finely minced
3 cloves garlic, minced
1-2 teaspoons cumin
1 medium onion, finely chopped

SOUP
presoaked beans
1/4 cup olive oil
1 ham bone or smoked ham hock or shank
1-2 teaspoons oregano
2 bay leaves
1 teaspoon sugar
1/3 cup vinegar
salt and freshly-ground black pepper
sofrito

GARNISH
sour cream
green onions, white & green leaves, chopped
raw red pepper, chopped
fresh cilantro (coriander), chopped


The night before cooking the soup, place beans in a colander and wash them with cold running water. Pick out any rocks or beans that are broken or shriveled. Put the beans in a large (4 quarts or larger) Dutch oven or soup pot with a lid and cover with enough cold water so that it comes to one inch over the top of the beans. Soak overnight.

SOFRITO

Carefully seed and de-vein the jalapeño. Finely chop the onion, peppers and garlic. A slap chopper makes quick work of this step.

Warm the olive oil. Add the vegetables and the cumin and sauté until fragrant.

SOUP

Preheat the oven to 325˚.

On the stovetop, bring the pre-soaked beans to a boil over high heat. Skim off any white foam.

Add the sofrito, ham bone or shank, oregano, bay leaves, sugar, olive oil and salt and pepper and cover. Transfer the soup pot to the warmed oven. Cook for an undetermined time which may be 4-5 hours or may be 12 hours or longer. No matter. Once it goes in the oven it’s not going to take more of your attention that to check at intervals of about 2 hours to stir and to see if the liquid needs adjusting to keep the beans from drying out. Continue oven simmering until the beans are largely broken down and the soup is velvety enough to coat the back of a spoon.

All the time you take to let this soup simmer will definitely pay off in deep flavor.

At any time after 4 or 5 hours you can remove the ham hock and refrigerate until it’s cool enough to handle. When it’s comfortable to work with, move to a large cutting board trying to keep it intact. Clean the skin from the hock and the fat and meat from the bones. Then chop the meat coarsely and add this back to the simmering soup.

Once the soup coats a spoon you can, if you choose, cool it to allow the fat to collect and solidify so you can defat it.

Taste and add the vinegar also correcting the salt & pepper and sugar to produce a balanced flavor. Simmer for 15 more minutes to let the favors meld.

Serve, allowing everyone to add onions, red pepper, cilantro and sour cream to taste as a garnish.



Old Fashioned Baked Beans

Recipe By: Better Homes & Gardens New Cook Book
Serving Size: 10


Not my Maine great aunt's baked beans but I've adjusted the Better Homes & Gardens recipe for what I remember of how she cooked hers and it works to make one of Steve's favorites.

There's controversy over whether adding salt to the water beans are initially cooked in prevents them from getting really tender. I think it adds flavor so I use some and cook the beans longer.

One thing that's really very important for beans is to cook them as gently as possible. A longer lower simmer will keep all the skins and the soft interiors intact. Meanwhile, the cooking time is a pretty flexible thing so long as you check on the beans and don't allow them to dry out. This means you can do them with a barbequed piece of meat that's smoking at only 225˚ so long as you adjust the time to fully cook them.

1 1/2 pound navy or Great Northern beans, (about 2 1/3 cups)
1/4 pound bacon, or salt pork plus additional for topping pot
1 1/2 cups onion, chopped
3/4 cup molasses, maple syrup is an alternative but doesn't have the dense characteristic flavor
1/3 cup (packed) brown sugar
1 1/2 teaspoon dry mustard
3/4 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon pepper

Rinse beans and allow to soak overnight or 8 hours in a brine of water flavored with a pinch each of granulated garlic and powdered ginger. ALTERNATIVELY, in a large pot combine beans and 8 cups of water with the garlic and ginger. Bring to a boil. Reduce heat. Simmer for 2 minutes. Remove from heat. Cover and allow to soak for 1 hour.

Preheat oven to 300˚.

Whether boiled or passively soaked, drain and rinse the beans. Return them to the pot. Cover with 8 cups of fresh water with pinches of garlic and ginger. Bring to a boil and then cover and simmer for 1-1 1/2 hours until the beans are just tender. Drain the beans reserving the cooking water.

Place the beans and the chopped onion in a 2 1/2 quart bean pot with a narrow neck or a casserole with a tight fitting cover. (They may well not all fit.) A small whole onion stuck with a couple whole cloves can also be added at the top where it can easily be removed. Meanwhile prepare a cooking liquid of the molasses, brown sugar, seasonings and 1 cup of the reserved cooking water. Pour over beans adding additional reserved cooking water to make sure the beans are completely covered. Place strips of bacon or the slab of salt pork to cover all and prevent drying out during cooking. Cover bean pot or casserole.

Bake about 2 1/2- 3 1/2 hours or until beans are very tender and dark checking periodically during baking and adding additional reserved cooking liquid as necessary to keep beans very moist. Remove whole onion, if used, and the bacon or salt pork as well to serve.

Would you care to join is at home bakers or or a yum recipes we have here
I did copy both recipes thank you

 

[perchie.girl]

My Grandma Was born in 1916, Grew up on a quarter section of land devoted to pinto beans. Grandpa Farmed it with Mules.... of course Beans was on the menu... alot.

Her recipe was pretty simple.... Pick and rinse the beans Throw them in the pot cover with water along with the ham hock or ham bone or ham neck bones... Smoked is best.
and simmer till the smell drives you nuts. some where along the line of middle of the cooking she salted the pot to taste.

While it was simmering she made Cornbread....

The beans didnt fall a part nor were they mushy or this or that. When I asked her why she didnt soak them over night or pre boil them. her answer "I never heard of such a thing."

I do change it up a bit... Adding Pepper and garlic...

For cornbread I make Hoe Cakes to go with... Oh Yummmy....

You take corn meal Equal amount of water. Bring the water to a boil and pour it in the corn meal making a cookie dough consistency .... The water is actually cooking the cornmeal. Then scoop it out with a spoon and press it into a pan of hot Bacon Grease... HOT so be quick... dip your fingers in cold water.... Soon as the cake is brown flip it and cook another.

sorry I dont have quantities I will have to look them up on line. niether grandma cooked with a reciep...

This came from my other Grandma Dad used to make them because his fingers were like steel.... Grandma And Grandpa Dixon were share croppers... Grandma was a fantastic cook feeding the field hands at lunch time....

The hoe cakes would be crisp on the outside and creamy on the inside.... Great with beans or chicken or all by themselves cooked in the field... Yep on the back of a hoe.

Dad remembers being a toddler and his sisters baby sitting him while he rode on the back of a big ole cotton bag pulled through the row of cotton. They farmed cotton in Texas.

But Grandpas specialty was setting up Berry fields and getting paid to do the work. They settled in Orange county with a small Orange grove for income and he would hire out to set up berry fields.

deb

 

[pennyJo1960]

My Grandma made those cakes when I was little

 

[karenerwin]

I didn't do much of anything in the garden today. I did pull some weeds from around the outside of the garden fence.

 

[Wee Farmer Sarah]

Good morning gardeners. I finished my first batch of pickles yesterday, will have enough cucumbers to do another batch by next weekend. I was only able to prep 5 lbs. of peaches yesterday evening. They are macerating in the fridge right now. Will get to the other 5 lbs. in a bit. I got a good deal on the peaches approximately 20 lbs. for $20 (it was only supposed to be 10 lbs.). I may be canning peaches all week, LOL! I picked several cucumbers, some baby summer squash and some carrots this morning. I only picked the carrots because something has been nibbling at the carrot tops. They are a bit thin but much longer than the seed packet advertised. I did get another handful of cherry tomatoes as usual. Then I pulled the summer squash plants. I thought someone had mentioned that one year they had planted summer squash too close to their butternut squash and it affected the winter squash development. I thought it was @Acre4Me, but I'm not sure and couldn't find that post. Anyway, I harvested 26 butternut last year and this year I have only 4 on the vine so far. There's still time before the first frost so I hope removing the summer squash will help. And thank whomever it was that posted that. The bean recipes sound quite yummy, however, I can't imagine making or consuming soup until the temperatures get cooler like in late September or October. I'm hoping the bell pepper plants will do better without the squash plants crowding them. I hope you feel better @penny1960 and I hope you find a new doctor soon. Have a great day everyone.

 

[Acre4Me]

@Wee Farmer Sarah, although I wasn’t the one to mention summer/butternut squash issues, it is interesting thought. My summer squash is right next to one variety of bnut. That variety is producing small bnuts. The large butternut squash variety is nearby (I think it has a name like “Goliath” or something), and it is producing nice sized bnuts. Across 4 large bnut plants, I only have about 5 bnuts. There are 2 smaller bnut plants that have produced 5 smaller bnuts. All Bnuts are in the bed that is clearly in need of much more amending, despite all the amending already done, so this is likely affecting the yield and size of the bnuts in my situation.

I’ve lost one cuke plant to some kind of wilt. Roots looked good, but leaves turned brown and limp quickly. Hoping the rest stay healthy so I can get some cukes.

Gave up on the Brussels sprouts. Despite growing and looking good, the sprouts were tiny and not growing well. And they should have been full size sprouts by now, it was a variety with a shorter to-harvest timeline, but didn’t work. Next year I think I’ll start in pots and plant in late July and can hopefully get a good fall harvest. But, the chickens benefit -I’ll pull up a plant and toss in run. Chickens go crazy for it!

 

[IamRainey]

penny, I'm so sad that you're losing a doctor you had a relationship with.

I'm 72 and in my whole life I've had 2 doctors that I had that sort of partnership with. They are beyond price! I cried when I lost both of them -- one to retirement; one to a move across the country.

Don't lose heart. You've probably learned a lot from your doctor in all that time. Just try to call on the memory of what advice they'd give and keep trying to make new doctors listen. The good part is a new doctor can bring new perspective.

As for another group, I love to bake and cook. But I do so much less of it these days.

If you've got a link to share I'd certainly look into it.

 

[gtaus]

I picked some more beans from my elevated self watering planter on our deck. The beans have overgrown everything in the planter, so I have had to take out my Swiss Chard and put them in smaller planters. Next year, I think I'll just plant beans in this elevated planter as my wife likes beans the best anyway.

But I think my favorite is the Swiss Chard, so I have now have 3 planters like this out on our deck.

 

[IamRainey]

I used Rainbow chard as a border in my flower beds one year. I planted them quite close together and they mounded up with different color stems amidst the dark green leaves. It worked well for the flower bed and I was able to get enough chard for a meal even picking just a leaf or two from each plant.

We had gophers tho that year and they took out quite a few plants. The nasty little buggers! They got an apple tree seedling too. The tree was looking poorly so I went to see what was up with it and the damned thing came up in my hand when I touched it. NOTHING left of the roots.

Looks like you've got some yellow stems in there with the red ones. And your beans are doing GREAT!

 

[trumpeting_angel]

@IamRainey - I think she meant the recipe forum here on BYC!

This site has everything...

I’m sure your amazing recipes will get a warm reception.