on friday night mike came over at around four-ish to spend the night. we made some huge, fred-flintstone beef ribs with a cajun rub and some bbq sauce, as well as a stir fry with cold sesame noodles and rice, with some chicken on the grill. was a fun night but also an early one, as mike had to work the next morning.
he came over after work (11 am) and we hung out, played video games, and ate. we went to the theater in town and watched the new die hard movie which was actually pretty good for an action movie. afterwards, we went to bistro 33 afterwards and had some drinks before heading home and chilling for a bit before mike left.
as a late lunch, i made some little potato, corn, and green onion patties and fried them. very roughly, this is how i made it:
first i put a small pot to boil and added 1 medium cubed potato, cut into about pinky-sized cubes (i used russet, the brown fuzzy one, but it would probably taste better with a smooth boiling potato). while that was boiling away, i added together in a bowl 1 egg, about 1/2 to 1 cup of shredded cheese (it was a cheddar and jack combo), 1 tbsp and-a-little of flour, salt, pepper, garlic, 1/2 can of corn, 1/2 c green onions, and maybe a tsp curry powder, reconstituted with maybe 2 tbsp of the boiling potato water.
when the potatoes are done cooking (which takes no time at all because they’re cut so small) i spooned them into a ricer and riced them into the bowl. oh, i think i also added about 2 tablespoons of half-half cream, and if you want them a little fritter-like, then don't do this, but if you want them to come out like flattened, savoury little pancakes, do this or add some milk or something if you don't happen to have cream on hand.
then you ust pan-fried in a little oil and drain on a napkin. sweet chili sauce was awesome with them.
also finally made nate’s mom’s baked beans!!!!!!!!!! a few days before i left canada, nate’s mom came over and dropped off a recipe that i had been hounding nate to get for me ever since she brought over a batch for thanksgiving last year. it totally blew my mind that someone could make baked beans taste as good as/better than a can. it really seemed like a huge amount of work, but it was no harder than making a simple vegetable stock, since most of the cooking time was spent either soaking or simmering the beans, with little actual work. they turned out great, and when i actually went over the recipe, it didn’t call for many ingredients that i already didn’t have.
these beans are quite sweet, as they have brown sugar, ketchup, and molasses in the relatively small batch.
a couple of things before i type up the recipe: i used a small bag of regular white beans. nate’s mom said that any white bean was fine. they’ll plump up a bit, but not that much. also, to sort of keep up the idea that this was constituted entirely from very humble ingredients, i used the dried beans rather than canned. the bag, which was less than a dollar, made five cups of rehydrated beans, which can either make a double batch (i reluctantly admit that half of the batch is already gone and it’s only the morning after the big bake, so if you’re as gluttonous as we are, perhaps this would be recommended), or can make enough for a batch plus some extra for other things that you might want to use regular white beans for.
here’s the recipe:
2 1/2 cups beans
Soak beans in water overnight. Drain, cover with fresh water, add making soda and simmer until skins split. drain and place beans in a large casserole. Mix remaining ingredients together and pour over beans. cover and bake at 300 degrees F for 3 hours. Add a small amount of water from time to time so that beans do not become dry.
4 cups water
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 cup salt pork, chopped
1 cup onion, chopped
1 cup catsup (it actually says catsup. so cute!)
1/2 cup brown sugar
1/4 cup molasses
1 tablespoon salt
1/2 teaspoon pepper
1 teaspoon dry mustard
So I soaked the beans overnight, and actually until late the next morning. in total, i think they soaked for about 14 hours. once you put the fresh water over, sprinkle the baking soda over and mix a little. make sure you’re not boiling the beans, it should just be a simmer, like the heat should be a 3 or 4 out of 10. Now, “until the skins split” is a little more time consuming than it sounds, because it took well over 40 minutes, and i didn’t even do it long enough. just get a big long spoon and take a couple of beans out of the water and look at them every so often. they *should* look like hot dogs that have been put in the microwave for a little too long, that is they should be splitting around and on top, impatient to get out of their little skins. there is going to be a bunch of weird off-color foam that comes up, just skim it when it gets too ridiculous and keep cooking.
meanwhile, i cut up the onions and put them at the bottom of the crock pot. something to maybe consider is not doing it on the stovetop, because i don’t think it’ll work with direct heat. if you don’t have a crock pot, i would think that you can substitute a heavy pot in the oven, but you would probably have to check it way more often.
i got impatient and drained the beans too early, but i didn’t cool them down when i strained them, i just plunked them hot into the crock pot. overtop, i put the other ingredients in (used wet mustard instead of dry) and set it to 3 hours on high, but it took like five hours before everything got mushy and tasty. also, i didn’t have salt pork and used bacon and some leftover beef rib meat instead, and i’m sure that this was significant. i’ve heard that when a recipe calls for saltpork and you use bacon instead, it really does taste different because they’re not the same thing. anyway, i took 3 raw slices of bacon and snipped them over the beans in bite-sized pieces.
Things to do with leftover white beans:
i made some artichoke and white bean puree, sort of the same consistency and taste as hummus, but a little bit healthier. used some oil from the canned and marinated artichoke brine and added some green onions, lime juice, salt, peper, and garlic. added some firm tofu to it and it actually made the dip better, believe it or not. i remember reading somewhere that when you add firm tofu to a creamy or cold sauce, it sort of makes it airy, as it’s not dense, tasteless, and keeps its shape even when pureed. anyway, we’re putting it on some donairs (except using leftover bbqd chicken) we’re making later on today and are eating it like hummous with pita chips for a snack.
i might try to re-make those corn and potato fritter things with some of these beans added in, maybe even instead of potatoes.
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