Ham and Beans

Steaming Hot Ham and Beans

As the heat of the summer turned into cool fall days this past weekend, my thoughts turned to warm comfort food.  Immediately, ham and beans came to mind.  I just couldn't shake the thoughts.  A quick check of the pantry and I had nearly all the ingredients.  The only thing missing was the ham....now that is kinda important, so a trip to the store for groceries and I was all set.

There are a couple of methods for soaking beans, you can do a quick soak method or just put them in water overnight.  I wasn't in a hurry so I opted for the overnight method.  Of course, if you are in a huge hurry, you can buy canned navy beans and speed up the process even faster!

I tend to make Ham 'n' Beans without a recipe.  I'll share what I did, but I did measure just so I could include the measurements in the event you aren't comfortable "winging it".

Ham and Beans

Ingredients:

1 pound of dry beans
1 cup of diced celery (3-4 stalks)
1 cup of diced carrot (3 carrots)
2 cups of diced onion (1 large)
2 pounds of ham steak cubed
1 bay leaf
1 1/2 teaspoons black pepper
1 teaspoon salt
10 cups of water

Directions:

The night before cooking, rinse one pounds of dry beans.  Put the beans in a large stock pot and add 6 cups of fresh water.  Let sit overnight.

The next day, drain and rinse the beans.  Put them back into the stock pot and add the rest of the ingredients. Cover and bring to a boil.  Reduce heat to simmer and cook until the beans and vegetables are tender. I simmered mine on low for around 2 hours.

Serve with your favorite cornbread recipe.  I will admit that this time I didn't make my corn bread from scratch, I used a Jiffy mix.

...and that's What's Cooking at Cathy's ~ Enjoy!