Slow cookers are perfect for beans. Like Ron Popeil used to tell us in his Ronco ads “Set it and forget it.” It’s a little easier to do that with red beans than white beans as you can start the red beans at breakfast and they will be ready when you get home from work, but white beans are more of a five or six hour haul and will overcook. I like to keep it really, really simple since the onion and beef broth and smoked ham hocks bring all the flavor you need to the beans. If you can find a good lean sausage to cook with the red beans that will stand up to eight hours cook time, go ahead and throw that in the pot as well. I get mine from the Cutrer booth at the Red Stick Farmers Market at Fifth and Main on Saturdays. Otherwise, cook the sausage separately on grill or stovetop when the beans are done. Richard’s Pork and Beef is a good one, but I’m sure you are already sold on a favorite. Here’s the plan for red beans:
½ lb Camelia red beans
1 quart Swanson’s Beef Broth
1 baseball sized yellow onion diced
1 baseball sized smoked ham hock
1 lb smoked sausage sliced
That’s it (I know you can handle the rice and corn bread and green onions advice free)
Almost the exact same plan for white beans and ham:
½ lb Camelia Great Northern beans
1 quart Swanson’s Chicken Broth
1 baseball sized yellow onion diced
1 baseball sized smoked ham hock
1 lb package of diced smoked or cooking ham
The white beans will be ready a couple of slow cooker hours ahead of the red beans. Now I’ve heard a lot about Insta-pot pressure cookers,but it’s a toy I’ve not played with or feel much of a need to. Like the “airfryer” convection ovens for broasting, I really don’t see the advantages myself. I could be wrong, I often am, but being in a hurry for beans just seems like poor planning to me. And if you want fried food without oil—Shake’N Bake.
