Beans and Cornbread - The Way Mama Used to Make It!

I am tempted to start out with that poem my brother used to say in front of my friends, just to embarrass me. But I'm going to resist the urge. We both know it and surely agree that there is a good amount of truth to that stinky old poem. I think Ben Franklin wrote it, by the way. I don't know if he did, but it sounds like him. He was a naughty Founding Father, that Ben.

The Cook's Taste - Mmmm!

No need to say a lot about beans today. They're good for you and everyone knows it. Except for that one friend of mine who still thinks...well, never mind. I don't count her.

Tonight's menu:
A Big Ol' Pot of Great Northern Beans
Cottage Cheese - I prefer Small Curd, whole fat.
Cornbread (I just use the recipe on the back of cornmeal)
Fresh tomatoes, chopped (if you have them on hand) or a can of chopped tomatoes
A small tossed salad - I throw this in for my husband who is of mixed Northern extraction.

This is how my mama always cooked beans, so I think it qualifies as a Southern recipe. Southerners love beans, which unfortunately, brings me back to that poem...

Cookin', cookin', cookin'!

Great Northern Beans

1 bag of dry Great Northern Beans (or you can use Navy Beans - most any beans can be prepared this way.)
Soak beans overnight, or at least for a few hours in the morning. Drain water off. Put in a pot and fill with fresh water. Bring to a boil and reduce heat. Allow to simmer.
(If you don't soak the beans first, you can still cook them for the evening, but the poem we both know so well will take on a renewed meaning. Plan on cooking unsoaked beans for several hours. Bring to a boil, drain, and bring to a boil again. Crock Pots come in handy at times like this.)

Chop the following, or cut into bite sized pieces and Add to beans:

1 giant clove of elephant garlic or 3 or 4 cloves of regular garlic
1 large onion (Vidalias are my favorite)
1 or 2 stalks of celery
2 whole carrots or a dozen mini-carrots
1/2 bell pepper, if you'd like bell peppers

Add 1 teaspoon salt - you're going to want more. Add and taste, add and taste. Let it meld between tastings. Salt can sneak up on you when you're not looking. Sea Salt is best. Kosher is good, too.
2 or 3 fresh or dry whole Bay leaves
 
Optional:
A hunk of Salt Pork or a couple of slices of bacon - to reduce fat, you can cook and drain the bacon, and crumble into beans.

Before serving:
Add fresh ground pepper. I never use canned pre-ground pepper.

Bring everything to a boil, and reduce heat to a simmer. You'll need to add more water in 20 or 30 minutes, and keep adding water as needed. Cook a couple of hours, or until tender.
 
About 30 minutes before supper is to be served, cook the cornbread. I don't have my cornbread recipe here, because I use the one on the back of whatever package of cornmeal. They're all basically the same. If I want to go "gluten free" or less gluten, which I will tonight, I substitute wheat flour with spelt flour (a non GMO wheat) or a blend of rice and tapioca flours, and maybe some ground almond meal, which I buy at Trader Joe's. The secret to cornbread is to cook it in an iron skillet, heated in the oven and seasoned with butter or olive oil before pouring the cornbread in. Then stick it in the oven and bake.

When ready to serve, remove the Bay leaves (especially if serving for kids. The school cooks left them in when I was a kid, and I was grossed out with having leaves in my lunch.) Put the cottage cheese and tomatoes into pretty bowls and serve. We never do that, but it's a much more pleasant experience when you do. I'm going to do it tonight just to be fancy.

Now this is what makes beans and cornbread...well, Beans and Cornbread:

Cut a serving of cornbread in half, and lay open in a large dinner bowl. Put the beans on top of the cornbread, and cottage cheese on top of that. Top with tomatoes. Or you can put the tomatoes and cottage cheese on the bottom. Whatever. Heat in the oven or microwave until the cottage cheese begins to melt and everything is all hot and sassy.

Yum! Beans and Cornbread. Health food from Mama's kitchen to yours.

Excuse me whilst I check the beans...

They're ready already! It's not even been one and a half hours. Time for a teeny weeny taste of the Beanies...need just a liiittle more salt.

Note: This is a great Crock Pot food, as I hinted above. After soaking overnight, put the beans with water and veggies and spices in a crock pot and cover. Voila! It'll be done when you get home!

(Pesky Alter Ego: Did you tell them about the jalapenos?
Moi: It's not Jalapenos. It's pronounced: Jalapenos. But you'd spell it like, "Halapenios".
Alter Ego: I don't get it. Why din't you spell it like that in the first place?
Moi: I know you don't get it. You're not real, Annoying Alter-Ego. Anyway, Mama never used jalapenos.
Alter Ego: Well, I like it best with a dollop of Jalapenos on top.
Moi: That's not a dollop. It's a "few". Besides, this is Mama's recipe. She was probably 60 the first time she even tasted jalapenos. And you're not even Mexican, for goodness sake, Pain-in-the-neck Alter Ego.
Alter Ego: So? And you are not Franch.)

Sigh. Later, Gaters. Ignore that last imaginary conversation. It's beneath your dignity to even read such foolishness. It's beneath mine to write it, but I can't help myself.

Until next time, Happy Beans to You!


 

If You're Guilty and You Know It, Clap Your Hands

I feel guilty when I do something.
I feel guilty when I do not.
I feel guilty for forgetting some things and I feel guilty for remembering.
I feel guilty for things from the past, even if it isn't that I did something wrong, but actually, that someone somewhere - anyone anywhere - thinks I did.

Yep. Guilt rides me like a pony sometimes. Shame follows close behind.

Case in point: Speaking my peace. (Or is it "piece?") Whether I do or I do not, I feel guilt.

I was talking to my sister about this just the other day. I fear there may be a few people who think badly of me, because a couple of times on one of my blogs or in conversation, I was "too honest" about some controversial things I should have kept to myself. Of course Those Who Would Disagree jumped to conclusions about me that were rather unsavory, shall we say? But also, downright wrong. Years later, I still feel bad and ashamed, even though I know that what I meant and what they thought they heard were two different things.

Well, Big Sis ended the conversation by saying, "Deborah, you are too much like Mama sometimes. She always had to say what she thought. Don't tell strangers how you feel about controversial things, even if you know you're right. It just gets you in trouble. It's better not to say anything."

I know that. I do. I felt duly guilty when I hung up. And significantly ashamed.

In my behalf, I must tell you that I knew better, even then, but I was experimenting. (Uh-oh. That's even worse, isn't it?) In one instance, I was writing and as a new writer, didn't really believe anyone was listening but they were. Now lots of people have the courage to blog about controversial things, nowadays. But not if they care what others think. Hate mail...they get lots of it.

So naturally, I say a whole lot less these days. I do so in several ways:

One, I bite my tongue a lot. It's downright bloody sometimes. But I do, because my opinion is my own and not everybody needs - or wants - to know it. I really don't have to say Everything.

Two, I "consider the source". I debateth not with yellers nor liars nor fools. Not only does it not accomplish anything, but its just not worth it. I end up frustrated and they end up mad. (Because many people get mad at everyone who has a thought that doesn't jive with their own. I'm sure you're not that way, though.) I try to remember what Jesus said. "Don't throw your pearls after swine." (Every time I hear that, I wince a little bit to think that Jesus would refer to people as "swine". But you know, Jesus had no problem feeling guilty or with speaking his peace...of course, he was always right...I'm not always right.)

Three, I avoid people. No I didn't say "I avoid confrontation"; I mean, I do that, too. But I am saying that I avoid "people". I find that if I don't get myself into those situations where everyone sits around in a circle in uncomfortable chairs talking about philosophy, then I don't feel the need to open my candy trap whenever someone says something stupid that I think worthy of debate. (Yes, I said, "stupid". See what I mean? Some would say that stupid is a Mean word. It is. But it is frank. You know what Forest Gump said, "Stupid is as Stupid does." If Forest can say it...oh please. He was nice! He was like, the nicest of all.)

But if I were to analyze my real reason for feeling such a need to speak my peace, it is this. If I don't speak up for what I really believe in, then who will? And if no one else does, the world I love (and have grown accustomed to, and am leaving to my children and grandchildren) may fall quite apart.

No, I'm not kidding. Remember Hitler? Some people saw it coming. Others who were empowered by the things he had to say, ignored the world falling down around them. For convenience sake, they knew nothing, they saw nothing, and they did nothing. Eventually they learned that their hero actually was a bad guy - even worse than they had been warned about. Tragically by then, six million Jews and countless other people had been slaughtered.

Even so, today some people are saying that Hitler did some good things. He brought pride to Germany. Then the mean old Allies bombed Germany and destroyed the beautiful buildings. So the Allies were the real bad guys... Say what? Well, they were butting in where they didn't belong. You know what I say to that, don't you? Are You Crazy??? And there are actually Holocaust unbelievers, who claim it never happened. They are either Neo-Nazis or they are Muslim. There. I said it. The "M" word. (*there she goes again...the radical...*)

So nowadays, it's Facebook, Facebook, Facebook.

Everyone does Facebook. And why do they do Facebook? Because...well, to keep in touch, I suppose. But they don't really want to keep in touch. Not with who they are behind closed doors. Nope. They want to build a facade that they can be proud of. Say clever things, put up family pictures, make up for the stupid teenager they used to be or remind people how "cool" they have always been. I don't mind that they do that. Heck. I do it myself. There's nothing wrong with keeping up with family and old friends.

In so doing, however, many are missing a great opportunity to share with and learn from a variety of people about what really matters in life - two things in particular, that were banned in many 1960's households:

 Religion and Politics. (Imagine that in a deep voice with a slight echo.)

To be honest with you, I'm not sure that in this day and age, the two are not one single thing, though they should not be. But I digress...

One thing that covered both subjects came up on the Internet today. I shared it on Facebook, though I hated to be "that pesky conservative" again. It was an article on a school in DC that is going to allow Muslims prayer in school. No, not "prayer" in school. "Muslim-only prayer in school". It's not a school-wide student-wide religion-wide thing, but it will be allowed for Muslim students to go off to pray toward Mecca, I think the article said.

Now. This disturbs me. Not because it isn't fair, but because it isn't right. There's a difference, you know. Some things that are fair aren't right, but that is a concept to cover in another post. But as for school prayer, either the first amendment is allowed in schools for everyone, or it is not.

I've had a problem with preventing prayer in schools since it was removed from school in the '60's. That and The 10 Commandments and the Bible and Bible club and tracts and religious reports and religious t-shirts, etc... All removed because of one atheist. One. She didn't want her son to hear about God. So our First Amendment rights were trampled under foot in order to satisfy the desires of one person. I was a kid, but even then I knew that an entire nation's right to freedom of religion was more important than a single person's problems with religion.

My preacher wanted people to get involved. But the good Christians in my church didn't want to stir things up. They didn't like what was happening, but they weren't willing to make any waves in the peaceful cove that was their life.

I'm sad to say, I don't think people understand the Constitution these days. Perhaps not even people I went to school with who studied under the wise guidance of Coach Lowery's History classes. Nowadays, I guess instead of learning about the unique freedoms guaranteed in our constitution, kids are taught Family Planning or given sensitivity training. What a shame.

What a disgrace.

Now I find myself again watching as Muslims are given rights that have been withheld from me and my children for 50 years. Yep. Radical Muslims came in and bombed the World Trade Center, but we deserved it (right?) and it is now up to us to stop offending them by giving them special privileges that the rest of us aren't allowed to have.

It makes no sense. None, whatsoever. And guess what else. Muslims in America are pushing to be allowed to practice Sharia Law, too. You know. The law where if a man says his wife cheated on him, they bury her waist down and stone her to death. Yep. The one where if a daughter or sister disgraces the family by getting pregnant, they can murder her? The one that doesn't allow a woman to show her ankle or walk unescorted in public or she will be beaten, or go to a doctor or attend school...yep. That's the one.

Now I had to post that on Facebook, but at the risk, once again, that I will offend someone by putting up something political. But the way I see it is, this is important, and maybe even dangerous to our future as a nation. You may disagree, but the point is this.

If I believe this and don't say it and it turns out to be true, I will be neglectful in my duty as a citizen of the US. And one of those things that maybe I shouldn't say because I might offend someone -Well, this is it: I think you will be neglectful if you don't speak out, too. You may very well be complicit in what takes place in the future, if you don't investigate those things you don't want to question, but know in your heart that you should.

Not seeing, not hearing, not knowing - these things are not evidence of innocence, dear friend.

Do I feel guilty now? (Thinking...thinking...thinking...)

Nope. I feel good.

(*That one thing you said was mean. That day when you were in a sullen mood and thinking unkind thoughts. And stupid ones.* Oh. Dang. That's right. I'm so ashamed...I hate myself. Thanks for reminding me. The worst was that I heart a nice person's feelings *but you didn't know anyone was reading your crap* Still...I'd give anything if I could take it back. I didn't even mean it...*Don't ever forgive yourself.* Don't worry. I won't. It's not in my DNA.)