Slow Cooker "Refried" Pinto Beans

I am a bean lover. Love love love them. I could eat beans for every meal and never get sick of them. Bean soup, bean chili, beans with eggs for breakfast - the possibilities are nearly endless. And don't even get me started on refried beans, which I could eat in a myriad of formats - nachos, tacos, burritos, baleadas (a Honduran style bean quesadillas), bean dip, and so much more.  Living in Ireland, it's hard to get your hands on cheap beans. For some reason, beans are exorbitantly expensive here. A can of refried beans costs nearly 2 euro, which is at least a 100% markup from the same product in the USA. I know not why this is the case. Maybe because the Irish palate hasn't awoken to the joys of beans, so the grocery stores think they can squeeze those of us for whom the consumption of beans is non-negotiable. Maybe we are farther away from prime bean-growing habitat, and beans are comparatively expensive to transport. Maybe there's a secret Irish bean mafia that has a monopoly on imports. Regardless, my bean-craving ways would have put a serious dent in our finances had it not been for my discovery/creation of this amazing recipe, which makes an entire crock pot full of delicious beans for a comparatively reasonable price. (A pound of dried pinto beans at the store is 1.40 euro, which is still way more than the same product would cost in the US, but makes a huge quantity of refried beans for a fraction of the price of buying them ready made.) I actually looked into the possibility of growing my own black and pinto beans, but sadly it's not in the climate cards. Who'd a thunk Mexican beans would prefer a semi-arid and hot to drizzly wet and miserable?

Without further ado, my slow cooker "refried" beans recipe that I would make every week if Sam would let me. (On one hand, it is sad that he doesn't quite share my enthusiasm for beans. On the other hand - that means more beans for me!!) As people accustomed to working with dried beans will be aware, this recipe does take some advance planning. Dried beans do best when soaked for at least 12 hours. I like to boil them for a half hour before soaking to really soften them up. So you're looking at nearly 24 hours of time from when you start craving beans until you finally get to eat them. It sounds like an excruciatingly long time, but this recipe is worth the wait!

Warning: The bean concoction prepared by this recipe fulfills the same purpose as the refried beans you can get in a can but is a bit different in texture and flavor. Strictly speaking, they are not refried in lard, as traditional refried beans would be. The resulting consistency is more like Grandma's baked beans than the thick concrete-like goop that comes from a can. The flavor is also a bit different, but in a good way - hearty and savory, with that homemade goodness that something from a can can never emulate.

Time Involved:

A half hour of boiling, plus 12+ hours of soaking to prepare dried beans. Once beans are ready to go (but not cooked), about 15 minutes prep time, plus 6+ hours in slow cooker.

Necessary Ingredients/Tools:

Large pot

Slow cooker

1 pound dried pinto beans

1 onion, diced

1 15 oz can diced tomatoes

1 packet taco seasoning - or make your own like I do by sloshing in a goodly amount of dried cumin, a little garlic powder, some paprika, some black pepper, and as much cayenne as you can take. I don't measure precisely, I just flip open the spice lids and shake wantonly. I live on the wild side when it comes to cooking, remember?

1 fatty pork chop, bone in and skin on if possible

Salt, to taste

Directions:

1.) Rinse dried refried beans, place in large pot, and cover liberally with water. Bring to a boil, cover, lower heat, and simmer for 30 minutes. Turn off heat and allow beans to soak for 12+ hours (overnight is good).

2.) After soaking, drain the beans, rinse well, and place in slow cooker.

3.) Add diced onion, pork chop, seasoning mix, and one can diced tomatoes.

4.) Using leftover tomato can, add anywhere from 1/2 to 1.5 cans of water. The precise amount is a little tricky to know - you want about 1/2 to 2/3 the beans to be covered in water, but you don't want the beans submerged fully or your end product will be too watery. I would err slightly on the side of not enough water since you can always add more if they seem too goopy or are starting to burn.

5.) Stir well and make sure no beans are sticking to the bottom of the pot.

6.) Cover and cook on high for 1/2 hour, then turn heat down to low for at least 6 hours, but anywhere from 8-12 hours is fine too. Stir occasionally if you're around to do it.

7.) During cooking, the pork chop should have broken down into a succulent shreddy mess. Fish out all the hunks, including all the fat and the bone. Once it's cooled a little, finely shred the meat with a fork and knife or your fingers and return to the pot. You can throw the fat back in, too. (Refried beans are chock full of lard, so don't be shy with the pig fat. It's good for you!) Make sure you've removed all bones.

8.) Salt to taste. Do this at the end, as salt can toughen up beans during the cooking process.

Enjoy! These beans can be eaten as a side, or can be used in any number of tortilla or egg-based dishes. This recipe makes a lot of beans, so there will likely be leftovers, which just means there will be even more beanly goodness in your future. They can also be frozen into suitable serving sizes for enjoyment at some future point if the idea of beans breakfast, lunch and dinner for days on end does not appeal. 

DIY Seafood Chowder

I am so not a food blogger!

I want to post this recipe for seafood chowder, because I’m making it today and because it’s yummy, but I’m hesitant to do so because, well, it’s not really a recipe at all. It’s more of a “choose your own adventure” – a list of potential ingredients, and a potential process by which you too can achieve creamy salty fishy deliciousness. Some months ago, when I first started making seafood chowder, I Googled recipes looking for a how-to guide. I took input from various sources, then just sort of improvised to create my own concoction. I’m not inclined to go out of my way to purchase fancy ingredients simply because a recipe calls for it. I just don’t believe a recipe will fail because you only have flaked almonds on hand instead of slivered, or because you leave out the celery. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not one of those who will substitute cinnamon for cumin (although that’s happened before in our household by accident). It’s more that I’ll happily use yogurt instead of sour cream, or a flour-milk roux instead of cream, or oregano and thyme instead of specially-purchased herbs de provance, or decide to omit the basil altogether. Take this recipe, for example:

http://www.donalskehan.com/recipes/howth-head-seafood-chowder/

I am sure that Donal makes a fine seafood chowder, but I am not about to go out of my way to acquire cod, salmon, smoked haddock, smoked salmon, AND mussels in their shells, just to make this recipe. I also like a lot more vegetables in my chowder than Mr Skehan does, apparently. I only have curly leaf parsley, so that will have to do. And I don’t have any double cream or pancetta. Does that mean I will just sit home and eat potatoes? No siree bob. Instead I’ll just use this recipe as a frame and… wing it from there. (Isn't that what everyone loves in a home cook? A strong sense of adventure?)

So without further ado, my kinda-sorta kitchen sink version of seafood chowder. As I usually do, feel free to tweak this “recipe” – double it, treble it, add or omit vegetables, mix and match the fish and shellfish, add different herbs, it’s all good! The goal is to create something that appeals to your palate, and that’s going to be different for each of us. No need to be a fussy rule-follower.

Time Involved:

About 1 hour 15 minutes (if just for chowder). It will take longer if you need to cook fish, make stock, etc.

Necessary Ingredients/Tools:
(but feel free to tweak as it suits you)

Large Pot

Additional pot/mixing bowl

Celery

Carrots

Onions

Potatoes

Fish, cooked and flaked (I will be using pollock and salmon, but you can use what you like or have on hand)

Shellfish, cooked, in or out of the shell (I will be using shelled mussels and cluaisins (baby scallops) from our bay – if you don’t have access to fresh shellfish or find it too pricey, you can often find good value seafood mixes in the freezer section of the grocery store)

Thyme (fresh or dried)

Parsley (finely chopped)

Bay leaf

Fish stock

Butter

Flour

Crushed garlic

Cream

Salt and pepper 

Directions:

1.) Roughly chop celery, carrots, onions and potatoes. Heat about 1 tbsp butter in a large pot. Add celery, carrots and onions; cook until soft.

2.) Add roughly chopped potatoes, bay leaf and fish stock (enough to well cover all vegetables) and simmer for 20-30 min, until all veg are soft.

3.) Let cool slightly, then pour everything into another pot or mixing bowl. Remove bay leaf.

4.) In the bottom of the now-empty cooking pot, lightly cook the garlic in a few tablespoons butter and sprinkle in an equivalent amount of flour to the butter, stirring constantly, to create a thick paste. This is called a roux and is a great way to make cream sauces, cheese sauces, or gravy. It seems really fancy, but couldn’t be easier. The trick is to keep the temp low and stir constantly.

5.) Once the roux is smooth and thick, slowly add one ladleful of fish stock at a time until a velvety soup base forms.

6.) Add in the remaining fish stock and all veg, stirring constantly.

7.) Add flaked fish, shellfish, thyme, parsley and pepper and heat thoroughly.

8.) Add ½ cup (or more or less) cream, being sure not to thin the chowder too much. If too thick, add more fish stock or water.

9.) Once you’re happy with the consistency and everything is good and hot, taste and adjust salt, then serve immediately with crusty bread.

Bon appetit!

A Second Thought

I have to admit I don’t feel good about my involvement (or lack thereof) in the death of Queenie. Oh, it’s not guilt for having allowed her to die – I am coming to terms with the fact that there was likely little I could have done in that regard. It’s more the fact of her actual death, and how I hid cowering behind little L’s bedtime routine rather than acknowledging or participating in the bird’s removal and burial. I thanked her for her service and delicious eggs in the last hours of her life, but I didn’t memorialize her death in any way. Instead I sent Sam out to deal with it, relying on his steady nerves to bundle her up in a feed sack and his strong shoulders to dig a burial pit on the back of the property. I don’t think it bothered him – at least, he didn’t question this arrangement – but it’s been niggling at the back of my mind ever since.

I have always been squeamish about the physical effects of death, and have a complete aversion to dead animals. I get a strong urge to run, hide, do anything to avoid having to actually touch something that is dead. Once it’s been packaged into a form that resembles food, I have no problem. I don’t mind handling raw whole chickens from the grocery store, and didn’t have any issue seeing/touching our pigs once they were sawed in half and hanging in the butcher’s cold store. But an animal that was recently alive? With feathers/fur still on? Fuhgeddaboudit. Ugh. My guess is that this sense of revulsion is common and entirely normal, probably even protective from an evolutionary point of view. In an age without soap and antibiotics, those who went about touching diseased and decaying corpses probably weren’t long for the world themselves. But if we are going to raise animals, and more importantly eat the animals we’ve raised, I am going to have to get over it to some extent. You can’t pluck a chicken, or eviscerate a rabbit, without touching it. I also feel that there is something in my squeamishness that is disrespectful to the creature itself. Yes, in death the life-giving spirit of the animal has departed so that there is a physical change. But, at least for a time, the body remains, and the body itself is the same as it was in the moments before death. If anything, it’s even more harmless because it’s inert. My aversion suggests that the transformation upon death is so extreme that I reject the creature entirely, body and spirit, and that’s just not right. I am not sure I have a point here, except to recognize a weakness in myself and to understand that it’s something I’d like to work on.

The upshot of all of this is that our second sick hen, Lulu, is not doing all that well. She is able to move about of her own volition and clucks disapprovingly when we approach her cage, which are both good signs. But she’s not eating or drinking much and is still diarrheal. I’d hoped she’d have made more of an improvement by now. So we’ll see. I may have the opportunity to put my squeamishness to the test again sooner rather than later. Sigh.

Death on the Farm

We lost Queenie, one of our hens, last night. On Tuesday morning she seemed fine. By Tuesday evening she was unable to fly up to her roost. By the time I realized she was really ill - on Wednesday morning - we quarantined her from the rest of the flock and began treatment. It seemed to be a bacterial / gastrointestinal infection (symptoms: weakness, lethargy, fluffed feathers, runny sulphur yellow diarrhea), so we started antibiotics, but it was already too late. She began vomiting up the water we were syringing down her throat, and by Thursday evening she was gone.

I don't really know what happened. We recently combined our four old girls with the new battery rescue hens, so it's possible she caught some sort of virus from the new hens. It may have been an e coli infection exacerbated by the stress of the newcomers to the flock. It's possible she picked up fowl typhoid from wild animals or parasites in the yard. Sam thinks that she died of a broken heart after being usurped from her throne by the newcomers. (She was the queen of our old flock, but found herself significantly down the pecking order once the new mean girls arrived.) We shall never know. At any rate, I am keeping a close eye on the rest of the flock for fear that whatever she had was contagious and will spread rapidly. Another of our older hens, Lulu, has been looking pretty bad the last couple of days too, though with Queenie's decline I haven't had time to deal with her. But today she too has runny poo and just seems kind of blah. I've immediately quarantined her, and am glad to say that she is eating both raw garlic (which is apparently an anti-microbial) and the yogurt probiotic mash** I made up for her. While she is not well, she doesn't seem as dire as Queenie did at this time on Wednesday. I still have hope that she might pull through.

While I am not devastated by Queenie's death (she was only a chicken after all), she is the first casualty we've had and it gives a new perspective to this farmyard endeavor of ours. I consider myself to be a conscientious chicken steward, and I feel responsible for her death, as if I should have seen it coming or taken more steps to prevent her from getting sick. However, chickens are strangely fragile creatures, and we had adopted an extra hen from the battery farm in the expectation that at least one would die along the way. I have to keep reminding myself that death is an inevitable part of farmyard life. Animals get old; they get sick; they attract predators. While we try to be vigilant against these risks, there is only so much we can do. Our girls are a wonderful addition to our homestead, but they are not pets. First and foremost, they are egg producers, and the harsh reality is that, if something else doesn't get them first, all our girls will have a date with destiny when their egg production drops off. At the end of the day, they are only hens. We are not willing to spend vast sums to treat their illnesses (even if we could find a vet willing to treat a chicken, which can be challenging). At some point, if and as we expand into other, larger animals, we may be confronted with more difficult decisions and steeper losses. Our recent experience with Queenie gave us a first glimpse into that reality, but we are fully cognizant that there may be tougher lessons ahead.

In the meantime, RIP Queenie. You were a good hen.

** Recipe for yoghurt probiotic mash / hen diarrhea remedy:

3 tbsp layer pellets

3 tbsp milk

1 tbsp probiotic yoghurt

2 tbsp applesauce on top (to attract hen's interest)

Serving size is for one hen. Repeat 2x/day. I'll let you know if it works!

The Difference a Year Makes

My how time passes! I have thought of this blog frequently in the past year, and have often wanted to record a moment or capture an image of our life here in the little cottage on the green hill. Unfortunately I have allowed those moments to pass, and, as they are wont to do, the minutes have turned to days, then to months, and now more than a year is gone. And so much has happened in that time!

For one things, many creatures have come to live with us on the farm. In addition to Chewy the not-very-farm dog, we now have eight laying hens. Four joined us in March 2015, and we rescued another four from a battery farm about a month ago. We love them much more than we thought we would, and have been endlessly amused by their distinctive personalities and the vagaries of their feeble chicken-logic. Two naughty male pigs (Yorkshire/Old Spot mix) joined us in early July 2015, and enjoyed the fresh air and mud under their trotters until mid-November, when they moved from their makeshift (I just mis-typed that as "makeshit" - which is strangely apt since that was their main job!) enclosure into our chest freezer. The pig run went from an overgrown patch of brambles and gorse where wise men feared to tread to a delightfully manured quarter-acre garden plot. It's seriously amazing what those two pigs were able to do in less than six months - the ground is down to bare earth, wonderfully turned over, copiously manured, and ready for planting. This past autumn Sam and my dad put up a polytunnel for me in part of the pig yard, and Sam's been up to his knees in muck this spring diligently forming up lazy beds to create the outdoor garden. Some girls' husbands give them flowers on special occasions - mine gives me the raw essentials to grow my own! Although why would I waste such prime real estate on flowers when I could grow the most fabulous garden produce the West of Ireland has to offer? I've been dreaming vegetable dreams for weeks now, and have already had a few chances to get my hands dirty. The first seedlings have already germinated, and the earliest of the baby pea plants and lettuces are in the soil.

In addition to all of the above, I managed to grow a small kitchen garden this past year where our front lawn used to be. The garlic was superb, the parsnips were show-quality, and the kale is STILL going strong nearly a year later! Sam managed to beat back some of the gorse and cleared a path around the perimeter of our property (which was no mean feat I can assure you). We took down trees and overgrowth to give us a clear view of the ocean, and did some other home projects, including giving the house a much needed paint job. It's now a sweet little whitewashed Irish cottage with green trim, completely befitting of the pastoral surroundings.

Oh, and minor detail, we had a baby! Our lovely daughter L made her appearance last July and has been a very welcome (though time-intensive) addition to the family. She's not much help around the place yet, and creates more messes than she cleans up, but I'm on the look out for baby gardening gloves and have high hopes for her as the resident egg collector... just as soon as she's big enough to reach the nesting boxes.

Reaching Toward the Sun

And really, isn't that what we're all doing at this time of the year?

Some of my seeds have germinated! The mustard leaf mix is really taking off, with nearly every planted seed germinating. This means I have way too many seedlings in the container, so in another week or two I will attempt the delicate procedure of transplanting them. (I could just thin and discard, but I always feel so much empathy for these little plants that so clearly want to live! Plus, more seedlings means more lettuce, and we eat a LOT of lettuce 'round these parts.) My other lettuces and leafy greens are coming along too, albeit a bit more slowly. The "bigger" plants have yet to emerge, but that's okay - it's early days for their likes. I can be patient for a few more weeks. It's still far too cold to plant out yet, anyway.

Developments of note:
Mustard leaf mix - pak choi, mizuna, tatsoi, mustards and cress: Germinated 13 March 2015 (5 days after planting)
Lettuce mix - red salad bowl, green salad bowl, lollo bionda, lolla rossa:  Germinated 14 March 2015 (6 days after planting)
Peas: Germinated 15 March 2015 (6 days after planting)
Spinach - bordeaux: Germinated 15 March 2015 (7 days after planting)

Still waiting on:
Corriander/cilantro
Basil
Spinach - matador
Serrano peppers
Jalapeno peppers
Leeks
Cumin

While the Sun Shines

The first proper "Spring-like" day of the season arrived yesterday. And not a moment too soon. After weeks and weeks of blustery, cold, windy, rainy, even snowy weather, a glimpse of the sun was long, long overdue. So when we woke to a morning that looked like this....

View from our front porch - not too shabby

...we knew we had to get out and enjoy it! We ventured into the foothills of the Nephin Beg mountain range, which is just north of our house (only about a five minutes drive), and walked along the back lanes, through gentle, rolling hills and along hedgerows and stone fences. The views back into Newport town and of the imposing Croagh Patrick behind it were inspiring, and as we came over the last little ridge Clew Bay and its many drumlins opened up before us. It was a soul-stirring sight, as it always is, and I regretted not having my camera to hand.

After the walk was over we knew we had to take advantage of the glorious weather, so Sam got to work on his pig-pasture project (full explanation in a future post), and I got the first seeds of the season into the soil! It's still far too chilly to even consider an outdoor planting, and the risk of frost persists for a few more weeks, but I got my window beds ready to go. And, for the first time, I planted some seeds that I hope will be transplanted into their permanent homes, either outside or in the polytunnel (yet to be constructed), once the weather warms up.

I planted the following seeds yesterday (8 March 2015):
(check back in a few weeks' time for a germination and growth update)

Lettuce mix - red salad bowl, green salad bowl, lollo bionda, lolla rossa (3 pots)
Mustard leaf mix - pak choi, mizuna, tatsoi, mustards and cress (1 window box)
Corriander/cilantro (1/2 window box)
Basil (1/2 window box)
Spinach - bordeaux (2 pots)
Spinach - matador (2 pots)
Peas (1 pot)
Serrano peppers (5 starters, for eventual transplant)
Jalapeno peppers (7 starters, for eventual transplant)
Leeks (18 starters, for eventual transplant)
Cumin (6 starters, for eventual transplant)

Now to find room for them all on the window ledges....

I also resuscitated my chives plant, which had been cruelly left outside over-winter and looked soggy past the point of salvage. When I went to clear out the pot, with the intention of starting over from scratch, what did I see but little green signs of life! I divided the root-bound plant into three smaller pots, cleared away the detritus, and am hopeful it will make a full recovery.

Today, it seems that Mother Nature is back to her old tricks, as we woke up to driving rain and sustained 40 mph winds. It makes the memory of yesterday's sunshine, and the lingering scent of freshly dug dirt, that much sweeter.