Dinner--Pork and Bean Pot

Dinner tonight!  I was lucky enough to have my landlady leave me her cook books.  This is the second recipe that I have tried, the first was Shepard's pie.

It actually was much darker after it cooked, but it received thumbs up from the boys.  Super Handsome kept asking where the meat and such was (inside, honey, just eat it!)

I served it with crusty bread.  I had a salad and the boys munched on some raw carrots.

Here is the recipe:

1 bag of pinto beans, soaked in water overnight
1 pound of pork
1 pound of bacon
8 oz of pork sausage (not Italian, I used a sausage that was flavored with onion, I would recommend using a summer sausage or kielabasa)
3 celery sticks
2 garlic cloves, crushed
2 tablespoons each:  fresh thyme, rosemary, parsley
OR
2tsp of each dried
16oz can of chopped tomatoes
salt, pepper and garlic salt to taste
1.25 cups of stock (I used a pork bullion cube, I suggest beef or chicken if you can't find pork))

Drain the beans.  Chop the sausage, bacon and pork into pieces.  Brown them in a pan, scoop all the meat out and leave the grease in the pan.  Add the onions, garlic and celery to the pan and cook until they start to become translucent.

Combine the herbs with the chopped tomatoes.

In a casserole dish layer 1/3 of the meat, 1/3 of the onion & celery, and 1/3 of the beans and 1/3 of the tomato mixture.  Repeat until you have used all the ingredients.  Pour the stock into the pot. Make sure your beans are covered (you may have to add more stock)

Bake at 350 2-3 hours.

Somethings that I did different, I used 2 14oz cans of tomato.  I cheated and did not soak the beans long enough.  So, I cooked it twice for about 2 hours each time.  I checked on the beans to make sure that they were done and I had to add additional liquid twice.  Upon tasting it, I found it rather bland and added quite a bit of garlic salt at the end.

It was a hit and the boys asked me to "put it in my book”.  Oldest Son who has an endless stomach, actually filled up after 1.5 plates full.

We followed it with homemade pumpkin pie for dessert.

I am on the hunt for a recipe that will be similar in texture and taste to Mrs. Smith's frozen pumpkin pies, which are Super Handsome's favorite in the US.  My quest is further complicated by the fact that canned pumpkin is almost impossible to find (I have not found any).  So, I had to start from scratch with sugar pumpkins.

 The pie recipe that I made was not quite what Super Handsome was looking for, but I am going to try a different recipe with 2 eggs instead of 3.  He felt that it was not the right consistency, he prefers his pies creamy.