One thing I miss about heating with wood are the awesome one-pot meals I used to make on the top of the stove.
I would not dare wait on a power-outage to enjoy some fine dining on those cold winter days in Ridgecrest.
Here is one of my favorite recipes. Don’t even let the word blandenter your mind. This is a Southern delicacy. A big bowl of this beats caviar or escargot any day of the week.
Remember to give yourself a day-ahead preparation on the beans.
Great Norther Beans & Ham
Get yourself a great big pot. You’re gonna need it. Next gather up some very inexpensive ingredients. This huge mess of food will have you smacking your lips for days and will only cost a few dollars.
- One or two large bags of raw Great Northern Beans. Personally, I like to mix one bag of Northerns and one bag of Limas. They work very well together.
- one or two ham hocks. Choose the meaty ones. Also ask your butcher for the smoked ham scraps. Those meaty chunks are the best! Be aware this is going to be the meat portion of the meal. Add all you want. No matter how much you put you will swear to do more next time. I guarantee that!
- Salt & Pepper.
Start the night before. Put all your beans in the big pot and wash them thoroughly.
Once clean, add a generous amount of salt – about a 1/4 cup and then fill the pot again with water a little more than double the volume of the raw beans.
you can leave the beans to soak in the salt water overnight. In the morning you will see the beans have tenderized and plumped up.
Drain off this water and rinse.
Add water and salt again. Add some crushed black pepper. Drop in your ham hocks and make sure you have plenty of water to cover everything. Not too full though, you don’t want to get messy on the stove.
Cover the pot and place it on the wood stove. If your stove is burning very hot, move your pot around or elevate it so it cooks slowly. If this stews all day, it will be that much better as the hocks and bean flavors mingle. There are few meats I enjoy better than smoked ham stewed with beans for 8 hours! It is amazing.
Keep a check on your stew. Make sure it does not stick or go dry. Just add water as needed and keep it stirred. When you start seeing meatless bones in there, it’s about done. throw those hock bones to the dog and he’ll fight bears to protect you.
Once it’s done, dip you up a big bowl. You can top it if you like. Diced wild onions are great. I like to chop bread and butter pickles and onions on top of mine. A dab of shredded cheddar is ok sometimes.
Make yourself a big fat cake of cornbread to go with it and you have yourself a one-pot meal that will warm your bones on the coldest of days. I like a big wedge of cornbread with the stew poured over it. mmm. Lord I’m getting hungry! Oh, a big glass of milk is nice too.
Got a favorite wood stove recipe? Leave it as a comment to this post and share it!
Jack
