Barbeque Baked Beans

Memorial Day weekend is coming up and that means three things: The Indianapolis 500, Irish Fest at Gaelic Park, and cookouts.

I’m a big fan of cookout food, especially baked beans. But I’ve never found a storebought baked bean product I’ve really liked, and most homemade versions I’ve tried have lacked oomph.

I think baked beans should stand up and poke you in the eye with their barbeque flavor. With this barbeque baked beans recipe that I modified from this one I found on the excellent How Sweet It Is blog, your baked beans will be noticed at your weekend holiday cookout.

It’s bold. It’s brassy. It’ probably gassy. But it’s super delicious and your guests won’t soon forget it.

Plus, you can make it in the crock pot. Bonus!

Barbeque Baked Beans

1 lb Navy beans, dry

10 slices bacon

1 White Onion, medium dice

2 Garlic Cloves, crushed

2 cups Water

3/4 cup Barbeque Sauce (Any kind, I use Sweet Baby Ray’s)

1 cup Brown Sugar

1/4 cup Ketchup

2 TBS Molasses

1/2 cup Kentucky Bourbon (I used fake Jake Daniel’s)

1-1/2 TBS Dry Mustard

1/4 cup Apple Cider Vinegar

2 TBS Worcestershire Sauce

1. Place beans in a large pot and cover with water. Soak at least 4 hours up to overnight. Drain, return beans to pot, cover in water again and bring to a boil. Reduce heat and simmer for approximately 1 hour. Remove from heat, drain again, then pour out onto a sheet pan to cool.

2. Cook bacon slices in cast iron skillet. When all the bacon is cooked, chop it into small peices and set aside. Drain all but 1 TBS of the bacon grease from the pan, then return it to the fire and add onions. Cook over a low heat for 10 minutes to carmelize, stirring frequently. Add garlic for the last minute, then remove from heat.

3. In a crock pot, combine water, bourbon, brown sugar, barbeque sauce, ketchup, dry mustard, vinegar, molasses and Worcestershire sauce. Stir in beans, onions and bacon. Cook on low for 8 to 10 hours or on high for 4 to 5 hours. When cooking cycle is over, leave crock pot on the warm setting for at least an hour so the beans can thicken up really nicely.

These beans are miraculous. I served mine with jalapeno cornbread and the pairing was so rich it could have been a meal in itself.

This recipe makes a large batch, so there will be plenty to share. They can be reheated the next day and in fact will taste even better. If you have an electrical connection in your backyard, bring the whole crock pot outside and keep your beans warm until you are ready to serve them.

What Memorial Day/beginning of summer food rituals do you look forward to every year? Share your story in the comments section below. And thank you for supporting my blog!

Ham, White Bean and Escarole Soup

As the weather begins to get warmer, I begin a desperate effort to make just a few more crock pot recipes before it’s time to put it away for the season.

There’s really nothing preventing me from using the crock pot during the summer months, but it just doesn’t feel right. It would be like buying a snow shovel in July.

My crock pot is great for the winter, but it’s even better during these in between times, when the temperature is warming, yet still crisp enough to send a chill down your neck.

It’s precisely these kinds of days when a warm soup slowly stewing in the crock pot brings the most comfort. Mix up a batch of jalapeno cornbread just before dinner is served and you have the perfect dinner for a cool mid-Spring evening.

Like most crock pot recipes, this soup is extremely economical. Of course, beans and the produce cost next to nothing, but in this soup I used ham scraps leftover from a long ago meal that have been waiting patiently in the freezer for precisely this moment.

You also could use a leftover ham bone or a smoked ham hock. Or simply leave the ham out altogether for a delightful vegetarian dinner soup.

I used Cannellini beans because they are a little larger than Great Northerns and I think they give the soup a little more substance.

If you haven’t used it before, escarole is a type of rough lettuce, kind of like a mix between green leaf lettuce and kale. I don’t generally make a salad out of it on its own because it has a little too much texture, but it is perfect for fortifying other salad greens or throwing into a soup like this one.

Escarole adds an iron-rich flavor that is similar to spinach but not as strong.

Ham, White Bean and Escarole Soup

1 TBS Extra virgin olive oil

1 Medium white onion, diced

2 Carrots, peeled and diced

2 Celery stalks, leaves included, diced

8 oz Ham, small dice

2  cans Cannellini beans, drained

1/2 head Escarole lettuce, rough chop

16 oz Low-fat, low-sodium chicken stock (or vegetable stock)

1 tsp Dried thyme

1 tsp Dried basil

1 clove Garlic, crushed

Sea salt

Fresh cracked black pepper

1. Place cast iron pan over a medium heat. When hot, add EVOO. When smoking, add onions, carrot and celery. This combination of vegetables is called a mirepoix (MEER-eh-pwah) and is the basis for many soup recipes. Saute until onions are translucent, about five minutes, then add ham and saute another two minutes. Add garlic, saute another minute, then add to crock pot.

2. Add to crock pot the beans, thyme, basil and stock. Set dial to low and cook for about seven hours. During the final hour of cooking, stir in the escarole. Continue cooking on low for another hour. Season to taste with salt and black pepper.

This very basic soup recipe can be transformed into any number of variations by adding or substituting different types of beans, proteins, seasonings and even greens.

You can even add pastas, such as elbow macaroni or orzo, and a little crushed tomato if you want to make a  more traditional Italian soup.

 

The Best Split Pea Soup in Chicago

There’s not a lot I like about winter in Chicago, but I do enjoy making split pea soup.

The best split pea soup has a dense texture and a delicious, slightly smoky flavor that will warm up even the coldest winter night. Although we’ve been lucky so far this year in terms of very little snow, it has been quite cold.

This recipe is a little different than how I’ve made it in the past. This soup includes red lentils and sweet potatoes in addition to the green split peas. That accounts for the lighter color.

The recipe also included a lot of liquid, more than I would normally use. Perhaps it was because I found it in a Weight Watchers crock pot cookbook. But the texture ended up being lighter than normal split pea, which I found delightfully refreshing.

It was super easy to make in the crock pot. Plus it is low-fat because it is made with smoked turkey leg rather than ham, a ham hock or  a peice of salt pork. The turkey leg created just the right smoky flavor but without any of the fat and less salt as well.

The turkey leg I used had been smoked and cut into cross-sections, which resulted in a lot of tiny pin bones that I had to pick through. But the extra work was worth the effort because of the added health benefits of this soup.

The result was one of the best split pea soups I’ve ever had. It tasted exactly like split pea soup, but it was much lighter. I’ve had split pea soups before that you could use to spackle a wall. Not this one. It was just creamy enough.

It was also very inexpensive to make. The most expensive ingredient was the smoked turkey drumstick and that was only about $1.50/lb.

Low-Fat Split Pea Soup

48 ounces reduced fat, low sodium chicken stock

2 cups water

1 cup dried green split peas

1 cup dried red lentils

2 carrots, peeled, medium dice

2 celery stalks, leafs included, medium dice

1 white onion, medium dice

1 sweet potato, peeled, medium dice

2 cloves garlic, crushed

1 TBS curry powder

1/2 tsp salt

1 smoked turkey drumstick

1. In crock pot, combine broth, water, split peas, lentils, carrots, onion, celery, sweet potato, curry powder and salt. Add turkey, pressing it down into the mixture. Cover and cook on high for four to five hours or on low for eight to ten hours.

2. Use a slotted spoon or tongs to remove turkey leg and set on plate to cool about 15 minutes. Using a fork (okay, I used my hands) carefully pick through the turkey meat to remove any bones. I found quite a few pin bones in the leg I used. Discard skin and bones, then pull remaining meat into pieces and return to pot.

A spicy crouton would go great with this soup. Simply cut some day old bread, any kind, into 1/2 squares, then toss it in a mixing bowl with a little extra virgin olive oil and a few shakes of cayenne pepper. Lay them out on a sheet pan and bake at 300F for about 15 minutes or until crisp. Cool then store in a sealable plastic bag or airtight container until ready to use. These will stay fresh for about a week.

This recipe makes a fairly large batch of soup, so be prepared to have split pea soup for a few days. Like most soups, it tastes better the second day!

What recipes do you like to make to warm up cold winter nights? Share your ideas in the comments section below. And thanks for looking at my blog!

Italian Beef Sandwiches

Philadelphia has the cheesesteak sandwich. New Orleans has the muffaletta. But Chicago is home to the Italian Beef.

We have an embarrassment of riches here in Chicago when it comes to Italian Beef sandwiches because there are literally hundreds of beef stands throughout the city serving this delicious and inexpensive sandwich, and I have yet to find a bad one.

The Italian Beef sandwich was invented in Chicago and was the result of the combination of two events that occurred simultaneously in the city around the turn of the 20th Century — the rise of the meat packing industry and the wave of Italian immigration.

At one time, Chicago was the nation’s largest meat processor, with millions of cattle passing through its famed Union Stockyards on the city’s South Side. Although the industry moved out West more than 50 years ago, the smell of cattle still lingers in that area even today.

Not far away, in the Italian neighborhood around Taylor Street, newly arrived immigrants struggled to create a new life for themselves. Although most were poor, they still celebrated weddings and other important events the same way they did back in Italy — with enormous feasts.

Unable to afford the choicest cuts of meat, the immigrants would pool their money and buy more affordable, yet tougher cuts, from the meat packing houses. Then they would roast them off smothered in traditional Italian seasonings.

In order to feed hundreds of guests, they sliced the beef extremely thin then kept it from drying out by holding it all day in an au jus sauce. The beef was then served on a hinged roll made of soft Italian bread and the Italian beef sandwich was born.

Today, you can get your Italian Beef any way you want it – with red sauce and sweet peppers, or dipped in au jus, or even topped with melted cheese.

As we host our own feasts — this time to celebrate the big game – Italian Beef is still an affordable crowd pleaser. This recipe can be held in the crock pot so your guests can serve themselves throughout the day.

Italian Beef Sandwiches

4 to 5 lb eye or round roast or any less expensive boneless beef cut

1 TBS EVOO

1 TBS sea salt

1/2 TBS fresh cracked black pepper

1/2 TBS granulated garlic

1 tsp onion powder

1 TBS Italian seasoning

32 oz beef stock

1 onion, julienned

1 TBS EVOO, separate

2 cloves garlic, crushed

1 TBS Italian seasoning, separate

Provolone cheese slices (if desired)

Hinged sandwich rolls

1. Preheat oven to 375 F. Use a sharp knife to cut away excess fat and silverskin from the outside of the beef roast, rub with EVOO then season on all sides with salt, pepper, granulated garlic, onion powder and Italian seasoning. Spray the bottom of a roasting pan with pan spray then lay the roast in the pan and cook for about 1 hour or until internal temperature reaches 140F or higher (medium). Remove from oven and let rest until cool enough to carve. This can be done the day before.

2. Put cast iron pan on the fire. When hot, add oil. When smoking, add onions. Saute for five minutes, stirring frequently, then add 1/2 cup water and cover. This will make the onions carmelize faster. Cook until onions are brown, stirring occasionally.

3. Meanwhile, use a sharp carving knife to slice beef roast as thin as you can. Place all meat slices in the crock pot, add the beef stock, garlic, onions and Italian seasoning. Cook on low for at least 6 hours. Serve on sandwich rolls with au jus from the crock pot on the side. If desired, place cheese over beef and melt under the broiler for a minute or two.

Italian beef also can be served with a marinara sauce and giardiniera — pickled sweet peppers and other vegetables available jarred in Italian markets — on the side.

Is there a particular food your hometown is famour for? Tell us all about in the comments section below. And thanks for looking at my blog!

Texas Black Bean Chili

Here in Chicago, we had been enjoying a mild winter up until this week. But the Arctic blast that has settled over the city is making us forget all about those warm temperatures and sunny days.

At least cold weather means it’s time for chili!

Our crock pot has been working overtime this month, with nearly four out of five meals being slow-cooked. It’s not only convenient — everything seems to be busier right now — but the enticing aroma wafting through the house all day makes the frigid weather easier to tolerate.

This time I decided to try something a little different. Texas black bean chili is similar to my standard chili recipe, but with a few twists. Besides using black beans instead of kidney beans, of course.

For this recipe, I substituted my barbeque dry rub for the standard chili powder/cumin flavoring. The barbeque dry rub contains a wide variety of different spices, but no cumin or chili powder. So the chili ends up tasting radically different, both sweeter and spicier.

If you have store-bought barbeque rub or dried barbeque seasoning, that works fine, too.

Texas black bean chili is also mas caliente than standard chili because of the addition of canned diced chile peppers. You can spice it up even more by including the seeds and ribs from the jalapeno, if you want. But be careful, once you add the heat, you can’t take it out. Another option would be to just let people add their own hot sauce if they prefer flaming hot chili.

Hope you’re staying warm where you are!

Texas Black Bean Chili

1 medium white onion, diced

1 green pepper, seeds and ribs removed, diced

2 jalapenos, seeds and ribs removed, diced

1 small can diced green chiles

2 cans black beans, drained

1 large can of whole peeled tomatoes

2 TBS EVOO

1 lb ground turkey (or ground beef)

2 TBS Barbeque Dry Rub

1/2 cup water

Sea salt and fresh cracked black pepper to taste

1 12-ounce can spicy V-8

1. Put cast iron pan on fire. When hot, add oil. When smoking, add half of the onions. Saute until soft, about five minutes, then add the turkey and cook until brown, stirring occasionally, about 10 minutes. Add barbeque dry rub and water and cook an additional minute.

2. In crock pot, combine beans, the other half of the diced onion, green pepper, jalapeno and chiles. Add the turkey and stir together. Add the juice from the whole peeled tomatoes, then hand crush the tomatoes into the pot. This is important to get the right texture for the tomatoes. Pour in spicy V-8 and stir.

3. Cook on low for 8 hours, stirring once or twice. When fully cooked, adjust the flavor by seasoning with salt and pepper to taste.

I usually serve my chili with oyster crackers, shredded Mexican cheese, cooked macaroni noodles, diced onions and fat free sour cream, but you can just use whatever condiments you like best.

What sort of meals do you like to make when the temperatures start to fall? Share your ideas in the comments section below. And thanks for looking at my blog.

Crock Pot Italian Meatballs

One of the few things I actually look forward to during Chicago winters is using my crock pot more frequently.

I’ve written before about how the crock pot is a central element of winter cooking in my house, but usually by this point in the winter I’ve already cycled through most of my slow cooking repertoire: chili, pulled pork, red beans and rice, chicken stew, etc.

So I’m always excited when I find a new recipe to try in my crock pot. In this case, it’s a very old recipe cooked in a new way: Italian meatballs cooked all day in the crock pot!

I was pleasantly surprised with how flavorful they turned out. Not only did they not fall apart — something I was worried about given the seven hours they cooked — but the flavors of the meatballs leached into the sauce, giving it a complexity and depth of flavor it ordinarily wouldn’t have.

Plus the sauce naturally reduced over time, concentrating the tomato flavor in a very interesting and delicious way. It started to have that intensity that tomato paste has, without the over the top acidity.

I served it over whole wheat spaghetti, but you could use any pasta you like. A quick note: A few years ago when whole wheat pasta first started to appear on the shelves, a lot of it tasted like wet cardboard when it was cooked. Recently, however, the manufacturers must have figured out how to make it more appealing because it now tastes every bit as good as pasta made with white flour, but with much more nutritional value.

Crock Pot Italian Meatballs

3/4 lb ground beef

3/4 lb ground pork

1 small white onion, diced small

2 cloves garlic, crushed

2 tsp Italian seasoning

1/4 cup Italian-style dry bread crumbs

1 egg, slightly beaten

1 28-oz jar marinara sauce

1 box whole wheat spaghetti

1/4 cup grated parmesan cheese

1. Preheat oven to 375F. Line sheet pan with foil and spray foil with pan spray. In large mixing bowl, combine the beef, pork, onion, garlic, Italian seasoning, bread crumbs and egg and mix well with your hands. Shape into 24 1-1/2 inch balls. Place on sheet pan and bake 35 minutes.

2. Place meatballs in crock pot. Cover with marinara sauce and cook on low for 6 to 7 hours, stirring occasionally.

3. Cook pasta according to package instructions, drain and return to pot with a little EVOO. To plate, place a heaping pile of pasta in the center of a pasta bowl, then use a kitchen spoon to arrange meatballs and sauce on top. Garnish with parmesan cheese.

Do you make any unusual recipes in your crock pot? Why not share your ideas in the comments section below? And thanks for looking at my blog!

Jamaican Jerk Pork Sandwiches

Jamaican jerk pork or chicken is sort of the island equivalent of barbeque. Traditionally, it is cooked over a wood fire on makeshift ovens made of steel drums cut lengthwise.

Nowadays, “jerk” refers to the combination of seasonings used to flavor the meat prior to cooking, mostly allspice, thyme, cinnamon and black pepper. Scotch bonnet peppers, among the hottest of all peppers, also are traditionally used, but many pre-mixed dry rubs available for purchase either skip or tone down this ingredient. The seasoning mix I used was not spicy hot at all.

While the origin of the term “jerk” is vague, it most likely came from the Spanish conquisatdors, who ate “charqui”, or dried smoked meats, during their long journey across the Atlantic. The term “jerky” also comes from this word.

Although jerk meats normally are cooked over an open wood flame like barbeque, most Americans wouldn’t associate jerk flavor with the barbeque you find on the continent. For one, Jamaican jerk seasoning isn’t sweet, it’s savory. Plus it lacks the vinegary tartness of traditional BBQ.

But it is still delicious and has been growing in popularity in recent years, perhaps because of travellers who tried it while vacationing in the Carribean were anxious to spread word of this interesting and delicious dish.

In this version, the meat isn’t even grilled. Instead, it’s cooked all day in the crock pot. But the flavor of the jerk seasoning is still at the forefront and I love the way slow-cooked meats fill the whole house with a tantalizing aroma, making me look forward to dinner all day.

Another thing I liked is that pork shoulder is one of the least expensive cuts you can buy. I bought a  7 lb bone-in shoulder and cleaned it myself and it was only $1.19/lb! Half went in the freezer for another time.

I served this with oven baked sweet potato fries, which are the easiest thing in the world to make. They are one of our favorites!

Jamaican Jerk Pork Sandwiches

2-3 lb boneless pork shoulder

1 medium white onion, julienned

3 TBS Jamaican jerk seasoning

1/2 cup chili sauce

1/2 cup water

1 can Mexican corn (corn with red pepper)

2 TBS salsa

1 cup shredded green leaf lettuce

Fat free sour cream (on the side)

1/2 cup chopped cilantro (one the side)

8 whole wheat pitas

1. Spray crock pot with cooking spray. Trim pork of excess fat and cut into 2 inch cubes. Place pork and onion in crock pot, sprinkle with jerk seasoning, cover with chili sauce and water and stir.

2. Cook on low for 8-10 hours.

3. Use two forks to pull pork apart. It will shred easily. Meanwhile, drain corn and combine with salsa in a small bowl.

4. To assemble sandwich, place a good amount of the pork in a pita, add corn relish, top with lettuce and garnish with cilantro and sour cream.

Oven Baked Sweet Potato Fries

3 sweet potatoes, peeled and cut into sticks

2 TBS EVOO

1/2 tsp sea salt

1/4 tsp fresh cracked black pepper

1/2 tsp granulated garlic

1/2 tsp onion powder

Combine all ingredients in a bowl and toss until sweet potatoes are evenly coated. Pour out onto a baking sheet and bake at 375F for 45 minutes. Super delicious!

Do you make any recipes with the flavors of the Carribean? Share your ideas in the comments section below. And thanks for looking at my blog!

Crock Pot BBQ Pulled Chicken

In my house, winter time means crock pot time.

We probably use the crock pot at least once per week from mid-October until the beginning of March. Crock pot cooking is super cost effective because you can use cheaper, tougher cuts of meat. The long, slow cooking time does the work of breaking down all the connective tissues.

Crock pot cooking also is time efficient because once you load the crock pot with whatever you are making, you don’t have to worry about it again until it’s ready. I like to prepare my crock pot meal the night before and refrigerate it. That way, in the morning, I just pop the crock into the pot, turn it on and forget about it.

Basically, a crock pot is just a big, thick ceramic pot that fits into a heating element. The way it works is that a low heat is distributed evenly throughout the sides and bottom of the pot, slowly cooking whatever is inside. It is almost impossible to burn something in a crock pot.

If you don’t already have one, buying a crock pot should not be a big investment. I’ve seen them available in the $20-$30 range. Ours has a lot of bells and whistles, and it only set us back about $45. For the use it gives us, that’s a bargain!

This crock pot BBQ pulled chicken recipe is a variation on a pork recipe I also make in the crock pot. The chicken version uses a store-bought BBQ sauce and beer. For the pulled pork loin recipe you kind of make your own BBQ sauce right there in the pan. I’ll post that one soon, I promise.

This is great served on whole wheat buns and tastes even better the next day, once the flavors have time to get to know each other. I always serve BBQ with lots of pickles on the side because the vinegar helps cut the fatty, sugary taste of the BBQ sauce.

Crock Pot BBQ Pulled Chicken

2-3 lb boneless skinless chicken breasts (frozen is fine)

2 TBS EVOO

1 white onion, sliced

1 tsp onion powder

1 tsp granulated garlic

1 tsp paprika

1/2 tsp sea salt

1/4 tsp fresh cracked black pepper

12 oz beer (any kind)

18 oz jar smoky barbeque sauce (thinner is better than thicker)

1. Put cast iron pan on the fire. Meanwhile, season chicken on both sides with onion powder, granulated garlic, paprika and S&P. When pan is hot, add EVOO. When smoking, add chicken breasts one a time, being careful not to splash yourself with the hot oil. Sear both sides, about 2 minutes each side, and place into crock pot.

2. Let pan get hot again, then add the other TBS of EVOO. When smoking, add onions and sautee until slightly carmelized, stirring frequently, about 5 minutees. Pour onions over chicken, then add BBQ sauce and beer and stir together.

3. Cover and cook on low for 8 hours, stirring if you happen to walk by. After about 6 hours, you should be able to pull chicken apart into strings using two forks. Serve on whole wheat burger buns. Don’t forget the pickles.

What are some of your favorite crock pot recipes? Let everyone in on the action by sharing them in the comments section below. And thanks for looking at my blog!