Blogger Action Day – Year of the Bean

Today my friends at WhattheDucks is celebrating Blogger Action Day in Celebration of Year of the Bean!  This is what their blog said on 1/27/2016:

“To join in, all you have to do is post something about beans, legumes or pulses on your own blog that day .  Share a recipe, upload a photo, write an ode to a chickpea!  Beans are good & blogging is good fun.  Hope to hear from as many bloggers as possible.  Even if some folks don’t know beans about beans, maybe you do!  Happy Year of the Bean, peeps!”

With that being said and being from the South – you just know that my mom is going to celebrate The Black-Eyed Pea.  Black-eyed peas are a staple here in the south.  On the first day of the new year, you have to serve them and collard greens for dinner.  It’s a tradition.  It’s thought by doing so, it brings prosperity to the new year.  And between you and me, mom makes sure they are on the table… you know just in case.

Now dad is not a huge fan of the black-eyed pea.  Therefore mom has to ‘doctor’ them up and give them such a flavor that dad eats an entire dish and then says that was wonderful without knowing what he ate… snorts – sounds like my mom huh?  Well, I’m going to head out because mom says that I don’t need to know how these are cooked.  She has a glint in her eye and I’m thinking it involves pig.  So here you go my friends – mom’s recipe.

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Now, I wasn’t able to make these before today – I know – I know.  There’s been so much going on here at the Hotel Thompson that it’s been unreal.  But I wanted to share with you my recipe for these wonderful understated beans.  Now this picture to the right is off of the internet under a google search of images.  Doesn’t it look amazing?!   They really are – if you’ve never tried them, you *must* at least once.  Now, I’ve asked Bacon to leave the blog because it does involve P.O.R.K. products which we don’t use here unless Bacon is out for the day.  Here’s the recipe to my Spicy Black-Eyed Peas:

UPDATE:  Lori brought it to my attention a very important step that my fast fingers left out – LOL.  The day before you make this recipe, you want to soak your package of black-eyed peas.  Shaking my head – how could I leave this step out?  What I do is the night before, before I go to bed I take a pot and fill it with water and add some salt.  I pour the package of black-eyed beans in the water – enough to cover – and then put the lid on the pan.  I leave this pan on the counter over night while we sleep.  The next day, I will drain them dry for cooking them at brunch/lunch.  The beans absorb the water softening them for cooking this recipe.t

Take 4 slices of any type of bacon that you like.  We prefer the thick cut or pancetta – which ever you have on hand.  I find it easier to go ahead and cut the bacon into small pieces and fry up in your iron skillet – we all have one here in the south 🙂  Once the bacon is done, scoop it out of your skillet and put on a napkin to drain the excess fat.  Put this aside for later.

Take one 16 ounce package of dried black-eyed peas that you have washed and add them to iron skillet that still has your bacon drippings.  Add fresh or a 12 ounce can of diced chilies and stir the two together. Add fresh or a 12 ounce can of diced tomatoes.  Salt and pepper to taste.  Add 3 cups of water and combine everything together.  Cover the skillet and cook for approximately 1 hour.   Now some people also add a diced onion to the party – we don’t here because Jim doesn’t care for them.  It’s a personal preference what you put in your beans.  While they are cooking, I will usually make some cracklin’ cornbread.

When the beans are done, scoop them out into a bowl and top them with some of your crumbled bacon.  Enjoy.

 

Shopping Around the World

My friend Fozzie and I have scheduled a group posting today of Shopping Around the World.   We thought it would be interesting to see the differences between different countries all over.Here are our prices for the following from our area – Georgia USA.

 Items to price this month:

• Spring/Summer is quickly approaching my friends on this side of the world.  On the other side of the world, Autumn/Winter is quickly approaching.  That is if Mother Nature starts playing well with others 🙂  It was suggested to post what you pay during this time of year for the month for your heating and/or air conditioning.  What temperature do you set your thermostat on?  Discuss.  Okay we keep it pretty cool here at the Hotel Thompson.  Mom likes to hang meat sometimes so daddy has to keep her in check.  Our monthly bill is a ‘flat rate’ bill.  We pay the same thing every month for 12 months.  Sometimes we use more watts than other months but it makes up the difference over the year.  We pay right at $205.00 a month in electrical – heating/air conditioning.  Our house is totally electric – no gas at all here… unless you count the gas that comes from this oinker – snorts and rolls with piggy laughter.
• Meat.  Fajita beef.  We buy a pound package for $4.99 at the market.  It’s already cut in small slices.  All you have to do is brown.
• Vegetable.  Head of cabbage.  When we are lucky, we can get this as cheap as $0.29 a pound.  This week though we paid $0.49 a pound.  An entire head cost us around $1.26 – awesome deal.  Have you ever eaten the core of a cabbage?  Mom highly recommends it.  It has a bit of a spicy flavor and is awesome!
• Random Item.   A can of peanuts.  We buy the store brand for only $2.99 a can.
• Homemade Dish.  See Below 🙂 This entire meal costs less than $5.00 for two people – and you have leftovers the next day for lunch!

  A ‘go to’ dish here at the Hotel Thompson is our version of a Chinese dish.  This is easy and takes less than 15 minutes to prepare.  It’s a huge hit!  We take the fajita beef and brown it in a skillet with a little bit of olive oil.  While that is browning, we use two boxes of the Lo Mein noodles that you can buy in the store for $0.99 each.  They come with the seasoning packs.  You open the packs, fill them with water and microwave them according to the package.  While the fajita beef is almost brown, add some chopped up cabbage and cook together.  When the Lo Mein noodles are done, pour them into your mixture of fajita beef and cabbage, add the seasoning mix packets, stir together and cover.  When the noodles have come together and the cabbage is soft but yet still has a crunch to it, top with peanuts and sesame seeds for taste.  There you go – instant meal that will please and is so delicious.  Remember to put a little back for lunch the next day.  Warms up wonderful!

I hope you had fun my friends with this month’s edition of Shopping Around the World.  Hope to see you shopping soon!

 

Shopping Around the World

My friend Fozzie and I have scheduled a group posting today of Shopping Around the World.   We thought it would be interesting to see the differences between different countries all over.Here are our prices for the following from our area – Georgia USA.

 Items to price this month:

• Milk.  Mom usually buys 1/2 gallon store brand which lately has been on sale for $1.00
• Tomatoes.  Mom loves Roma tomatoes.  They are small but meaty.  She bought some for the dinner at $1.29 a pound – that was about 4 tomatoes.
• Canned Product.  Black beans.  How could you possibly go wrong with black beans – especially when you can buy store brand for a $1.00 a can.  Mom bought two cans for the meal.
• Homemade Dish.  Jalapeno Cornbread with Black Beans 🙂 yum – see below
• Random Item of your choice.  Jalapeno.  Mom bought one very large one and it only cost $0.69 the day she was at the market.

 Okay my friends.  Mommy went easy – really easy on this month’s Shopping Around the World – go mom!  She was able to combine all of her prices and items into the Homemade Dish – which is one of our favorites here at the Hotel Thompson.

Jalapeno Cornbread made with with a diced up Jalapeno (according to taste how much you throw in), cup of milk, 1 egg, 2 tablespoons of melted butter, 1 cup of cornmeal and shredded cheddar cheese.  We have a small iron skillet that will serve four slices of cornbread.  Mix ingredients, except for shredded cheddar cheese, and bake in the oven at 350 degrees for 30 minutes.  When done turn over skillet onto a plate and top with shredded cheddar cheese.

Black Beans with tomatoes, diced Jalapeno’s and diced red onions. So easy here – snorts.  Open store bought black beans and heat over the stove on medium heat.  Add a little chicken broth (or whatever broth you have on hand), diced Jalapenos (to taste for heat) and diced tomatoes.  When bubbles, turn down to low and stir.

When bread is ready, spoon black beans into bowl and top with more diced tomatoes.  Mom even added some cilantro into the mix this date.  A meal made for a king and queen.  Filling and hot for a cold rainy night that we seem to be having a LOT of lately.  Happy eats my friends.

Oh… and this entire meal when you break it down ends up to be around less than $6.00 for two people.

I hope you had fun my friends with this month’s edition of Shopping Around the World.  Hope to see you shopping soon!

 

Canned Bread Anyone?

A while back Nana gave mommy a can of this B&M Brown Bread with raisins.  It’s something that Nana’s mom used to fix when she prepared beanie weenies.  Mom and dad had never had it.  It sat in the pantry cabinet whispering to mom to try it every night when she prepared dinner.  It was like a stalker, “Try me tonight.”  “I’m good”.  “Really I am”.

Finally this past weekend, mom got the nerve.  She had dinner in the oven (of course beanie weenies) and it needed a bread of some sort to go with it.  She opened the pantry cabinet and this can of bread literally jumped out into mom’s arms in a final fleet of escape.  Mom thought what the heck.

She put her iron skillet on the stove and started melting some butter.  Then she looked at the can, kind of scared at first on how to go about opening it.  She opened one end of the can and knocked it several times on the cutting board hoping the bread would fall through.  It didn’t.  Okay.  You wanna fight can?  She then opened the other end of the can and pushed the bread through.  Can – zero and mom – one.

The bread.  Well let’s just say that it looked unappealing.  With a thud it dropped out onto the counter looking miserable.

That’s when the butter that was melting came into play in the iron skillet.  Mom cut the lump of bread into slices, coated them with the butter in the skillet and warmed them up.  She had doubts.  Trust me – we ALL had doubts about this so called bread in a can.  While it was warming, mom finished up her beanie weenies.  She then plated the bread and sat it on the table.

Mom and dad sat down and stared at their plates for a while.  Mom was like, “You try it first.”  And dad was like, “No, you try it first.”  Humans – they are so weird.  Then they both looked at me and said, “Let’s get Bacon to try it.  He likes everything.”  Why does that sound faintly familiar?  Snorts

I tried it.  I liked it.  But was I really the one to test this out?  I think not.  So dad got brave.  He picked up a piece and bit it.  Mom waited for a few minutes to see if he got sick or repulsed.  And guess what.  He didn’t.  He liked it.  He really liked it.  So mom tried some.  And guess what?  She liked it too.  It really wasn’t bad.  It’s a little dense but it went great with the beanie weenies.  Would they try it again.  Yep… and so would I.

Have you ever tried this kind of bread in a can?  I highly recommend you at least trying it once. You know broaden your food horizons like my mom and dad.  They were scared at first but welcomed the challenge.  You?