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Friday, May 22, 2009

Recipe: Crockpot Beans and Salt Pork

I just discovered this recipe - found it in a pioneer book and modified it to suit me. Before bed on Friday, I placed all of the ingredients in the crockpot and let it simmer on low all night. The house smelled wonderful! Hubby and I ate on it all day; VHTS is a very picky eater and had to be coerced to eat any, but he loved the "bacon" taste.

For this recipe, you need to use a large-sized crockpot, and trust me, it will provide many meals! Well worth it.

Ingredients:
  • 1 pound of dry (picked-through) kidney beans
  • 1 ham bone or a big ole chunk of salt pork or bacon
  • 5 cups water or broth or red wine or any combination thereof!
  • 1/2 cup various spices (you choose from: tobasco sauce, bay leaves, garlic, onion, thyme, sage, salt, pepper, red pepper flakes, marjoram, etc.)
  • 2 cups miscellaneous dried vegetables (bell pepper, celery, carrots, potatoes, etc.)
  • Garnish: chopped parsley, grated cheese, chopped scallions
Directions:
Put the beans, pork, spices and liquid in the crockpot on low heat. Cook covered for 8-10 hours. Then check the liquid level - add more if you need, to cover the beans. If it's too liquidy, you could add a half cup of rice or pasta. Add the dried veggies (if you do it at the beginning, they'll be mush!) Cook another couple of hours - beans should be very tender. Remove bones and any bay leaves. Sometimes I thicken it up by adding 2 tablespoons of rice flour (you could use wheat flour but we're gluten-free here) and cook for another 30 minutes or so. Serve in bread bowls or regular bowls, and add garnish just before serving.

This is a really cheap dish. Sometimes we get cheap bacon end pieces for $4.99; we could use a fifth of the package for this, so $1.00 plus $1.27 for the beans, and another $2.00 for the various dried veggies and spices + nothing if you use water instead of broth = $4.27 for a big crockpot that makes 8-10 servings. Add in bread and you have a well balanced meal for around $5.00 for 8-10 people!

This soup can be made so many different ways, just by varying the beans, spices and veggies. Enjoy!

Copyright (c) 2009 VP Lawrence-Williams


Original: http://www.survival-cooking.com/2009/04/recipe-crockpot-beans-and-salt-pork.html

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