Navy Bean Soup

Navy Bean Soup - Crockpot
A bag (2 cups?) of dry navy beans
6 cups water
2-3 T McCormick's Real Chicken Base (it's salty)
1 bay leaf
1 cup chopped celery
1/2 cup chopped onion
1/2 tsp liquid smoke
2 pork chops - bone in, excess fat removed

Rinse navy beans and put all ingredients in crockpot and cook on high for six to eight hours.  Stir occasionally. I added 3 more cups of water because my glass top crockpot allows evaporation.  Remove bay leaf and continue cooking on low for the rest of the afternoon.  Add water to make it the soupiness you desire.

I'm not a fan of pre cooking dried beans.  This is so easy!

Chicken and Root Veggie Curry Stew

Chicken and Root Vegetable Curry Stew


I love winter cooking and decided a good curry stew would suit me just fine.  Don't you just love it when you create something and you can't wait for dinner because you KNOW it's going to be incredible?  This picture is just after I chopped everything up, and if I think of it, I'll take a pic of the finished product.  Here's the scoop:

• 2 c. lowfat chicken broth
• 3 T curry powder
• 1 tsp cayenne pepper
• 1/2 t. turmeric
• 1/2 t. ginger powder
• 3 fat garlic cloves, sliced
• 1 onion, sliced
• 2 stalks celery, chopped
• 1 can chopped fire grilled tomatoes
• 2 yukon gold potatoes, cubed up, but if I had a can of chickpeas I would have used that
• 2 carrots, sliced
• 2 parsnips, sliced
• 1 turnip, peeled and cubed
• 1 rutabaga, peeled and cubed
• about 8 oz. frozen green beans
• 3/4 green bell pepper, sliced
• 2 boneless skinless chicken breasts, chopped in large pieces
• 1 big fragrant bay leaf
• and because my family are natives of St. Augustine, Floridia,  I had to add 3 T of the datil pepper sauce I made last month.

Toss all in a crockpot on high for 6 hours.  

Remove the bay leaf and add a handful of frozen peas and a cup of light coconut milk 15 minutes before serving.  That's about a half can of milk.  When I use an unusual (for me) ingredient that will have leftovers, I pour the rest into a ziploc baggie, wash out the can, put the baggie of milk into the open can and stick it all in the freezer.  Otherwise it will be lost forever.

Oatmeal Cookies!

We left on Christmas Day for NC and when we got home ten days later, well, there were no cookies left.  David got hungry and won't cook...  So to satisfy Mark's (and my) cookie sweet tooth, I passed up an oatmeal breakfast and instead made oatmeal cookies!  Follow directions?  Nevah!!

Recipe calls for 2 sticks of butter, but I only had one, so I added one stick butter and the remainder in Crisco. 1 cup dark brown sugar (packed), uh-oh, only light brown - so I used the light brown and added a bloop (2-3 tablespoons?) of dark molasses. 1/2 cup white sugar. 2 eggs. 1 T vanilla. ... I am mixing as I add.

The dry ingredients in a separate (larger) bowl: 1-1/2 cups flour, 1 tsp baking soda, 1 tsp cinnamon, 1/2 tsp salt, 3 cups oats (uncooked).  Because they were left over from Christmas baking and the baggie was handy, I threw in probably 1/2-2/3 cup of chopped pecans too.

Hmmm, the recipe asks for a cup of raisins, but I only have a larger lunch size box of pitiful dried up raisins, so I followed my friend's suggestion and plumped them in rum for about five minutes.  That worked!  I scooped the moistened raisins out, drank that darkened shot of rum, then stirred the raisins into the wet mix.  Mixed the wet to the dry and started baking in a 350F preheated oven. I could have tossed the rum in too, as the mix was a little dry.

I made balls a little smaller than my palm and squished them before putting them on the ungreased cookie sheet.  As the first batch of 12 cookies were baking (about 14-16 minutes), I got a genius idea and stirred in about 2/3 cup peanut butter because David likes pb cookies.  The cookies came out nice sized and soft/chewy in the middle, crisp on the edges (Crisco makes a crisp cookie), just how I like em!  This recipe made 3 dozen medium/large cookies, delicious with a cup of coffee for breakfast!