Quick and Easy - Boneless Ribs and Baked Beans

Wanted something quick and easy for Dinner on Friday, and boneless pork country style ribs were on sale, so quess what we had for dinner?  This was supper easy to prep, but took some oven time.  I like boneless ribs fall-apart tender, so I cook them low and slow.  I took 3 cans of GF Baked beans (yes, some of them have wheat flour to thicken them!), and poured them into a roasting pan.  I then placed 5lbs of ribs on top and baked at 325 for 3 hours.  I then covered the ribs in Stubbs BBQ sauce and returned to the oven for 30 minutes for the sauce to bake onto the ribs.  Quick, simple, and all that pork fat made it a slice of fatboy heaven!

Dinner Time - Bean and Honey Burrito Casserole

I was looking for a way to use some leftover shredded chicken last night, and found this recipe.  The combination of peppers and chicken with the honey sauce made this awesome!  To make it gluten free all I needed to do was use corn tortillas instead of flour.  The combination of textures provided by adding garbonzo beans to the traditional black beans and corn created a great contrast to the smoothness of the sauce.  Give this one a try, you'll be suprised.

Dinner Time - Gluten Free Bean and Corned Beef Soup

Tonight I wanted to try something different than the old standby soups I've been doing lately.  I saw a recipe idea for bean and brisket soup and modified it a bit to meet our dietary needs.

The soup turned out great, getting rave reviews from the family.  The corned beef made it a bit too salty for my taste straight from the package.  I should have maybe soaked it in water to try and get some of the curing out, but otherwise it was amazing.  As with any soup, the true test will be how it is the next day after the flavors have married together overnight, but I'm calling this one a hit.

The recipe can be found here.

Bacon Night! - Slow Cooker Northern White Bean Bacon Chowder

Bacon, Beans, and Crock Pots - yes please!Ok folks, it's been cold and windy, so a nice soup sounded good tonight.  I started with Northern White beans, and kicked them up with lots of bacon.  Add some chicken broth, veggies, and seasoning then throw it into the slow cooker and forget it for 8-10 hours.  Nice quick prep in the morning, then nothing left to do when you get home from work but add some milk to smooth it out and dish up dinner for the family.  You can find the recipe here.

Cooking with Beer: 15 Bean Cajun soup with Ham Shanks

A nice soup on a cold wintery day can be just the thing.  One of my favorites is a nice thick 15 Bean soup. Hurst’s Hambeens Cajun 15 Bean Soup can be found with the other beans and legumes at most grocery stores.  I love their flavor, and the great mix of beans they provide.  I also found when I first started cooking that their recipes on the back were great for making sure the soup came out perfect every time.

I started today by soaking the beans in water for 7 hours.  The longer you let them soak, the better and faster they cook.  Keep this in mind if you want to cook them in the crock-pot.  Leaving them to soak overnight before turning on the crock-pot in the morning will give you perfect beans every time.

Once I had drained the water from off of the beans (trust me, never use the liquid you soaked them in to cook them), I added them to the pot.  At this point the standard recipe and I diverge in the wood.  Hambeens recipe calls for just 2 quarts of water.  I prefer a thicker, more flavorful soup, so I used 2 bottles of Henry Winehard’s India Pale Ale, and 2 cups of beef stock.

To this I add the included seasoning packet, 3 tbs. of Garlic Powder, 2 tsp. black pepper, and 2 tsp. Lowery’s Seasoning Salt.

I then add 2 Large Ham shanks.  I prefer the shank to the hock as it has more meat, and seems to have less salt.  You could also brown some cajun sausage links or the like here for different flavor profiles.

Bring the soup to a rapid boil for 3-5 minutes, then turn to low and let it cook.  After about 2 hours, here is what it looks like:

Enjoy!