Ham & Beans

We eat a bit differently from a lot of you probably but I would rather have ham and beans any day than steak. I think I mentioned before that over a year ago Chad met a lady who lives somewhere in Kansas who raises some kind of heirloom pigs. She gave Chad a couple of packages of pork and a couple of packages of bacon. When he was back in the area, he went by to tell her how much he loved the bacon and pork – so different from grocery store meat or, at least what we get in our grocery stores. Chad asked her if she ever sold her pigs and she said that she does but you had to let her know so she could raise them from small pigs. He ended up getting her to raise one for them and for us.

I took out two packages that said “ends” on them. I wasn’t sure what that was. One package ended up being the end of a ham – kinda bony with not much meat. The other looked like pork steaks I guess from the “end” of something, four steaks in a package and they had a bone in them. I stuck all of those pieces of steak and ham in the smoker and smoked it for about 5 hours. Then I put it in the slow cooker full of water to make smoky pork broth. Last night I put great northern beans on to soak and today I will can ham and beans. I canned about 14 quarts of ham and beans about six months ago and I have one left and it’s on the menu for this week so I’m hoping to get 14 quarts of ham and beans canned today. Yum!

By the way, I watched a video last night on how commercial meat companies raise pigs that are processed for grocery store meat. I’m pretty glad we already have a home grown pig in the freezer because I don’t think I would be eating pork after watching that video. In fact, I called Chad and asked him if he planned on getting another pig. He said yes so I asked him to get me one too. He thinks we should each get a pig and get a third one for making sausage, andouille, etc. Not sure about that . . but he will make all the sausage so I guess I should say yes to his offer.