Adventures in cooking
When Lyse joined the ranks of homeowners and moved out of her rented apartment last fall, we (Geoffrey & I) helped her move the last miscellaneous bits. She was throwing out tons of things, so we ended up inheriting about a station wagon load-full of stuff. Amidst the spoils of moving victory, I ended up grabbing a few bean soup mixes. Although she was throwing out most of her food as being past old and well into decrepit (since she cooks like a bachelor, which is to say “almost never”), I figured that dry beans and split peas don’t go bad.
Last night, I opened all the packages into my crockpot, covered the assortment with water as directed, and let it all soak overnight. This morning, after rinsing the slightly-larger beans, I added fresh water and tossed in a chopped onion, a couple of cans of tomato paste, a can of stewed seasoned tomatoes, some garlic, lemon juice, Worcestershire sauce, a couple of large hamhocks, and all the spice packets that came with the assorted soup mixes. (A couple of the soup mixes came with itty-bitty cute little Tabasco sauce bottles, which I am saving to give back to Lyse since no amount of Tabasco is welcome in my food, but she loves the stuff.) When the beans are almost done, I’ll be adding celery, and possibly some cooked pasta if there appears to be enough room in the crockpot.
This is pretty much how I cook. I’m a firm believer in the school of, “I have a bunch of ingredients that appear to go together, so I’m going to haphazardly toss them all into the crockpot and add a bunch of seasonings that smell good, and hope for the best!” The biggest drawback to this philosophy of cooking? I can rarely duplicate a recipe, which is annoying when I stumble upon something really good.
So, either this will turn out to be some damned good bean & pea soup, or I will have wasted several dollars worth of canned tomatoes, produce & hamhocks. I’m betting it will be scrumptious.
