Dried beans are the easiest dish in the world to prepare, and used to be the staple when the cook was too busy to cook. You just pick the beans over, wash them, soak them overnight, and boil them in the soaking water.
Folks are always touting a "quick soak" in which you bring the beans to the boil, turn the heat off, and wait one hour before proceeding. I can't think of any reason to go to that much trouble, and I think the beans are better if they have time to think that they are going to sprout.
Since I like my beans simmered all day, I've never tried to find out how short a time they'll cook in, but I think that well-soaked beans will cook done enough to puree as a chestnut substitute or toss in a salad as a garnish if you merely bring them to a good rolling boil, then allow them to set until they come down to handling temperature. (If you're cooking a small amount of beans, it might be well to simmer them for a while before turning off the heat.)
To make good beans, you need a good meaty bone. It's possible to make a good vegetarian bean soup, but not easy. The bone of a good ham is best, but ham bones have gotten scarce. Sometimes you can find smoked pork necks; when these are good, they are very, very good — if you don't get hysterical at finding small bones in your soup. In a pinch, a boneless picnic ham will do; if you can find some smoked yeast to throw into the broth, it will taste more like broth made with a good bone.
Instructions for making bean soup will be long and wordy; bear in mind that making soup is something easier done than said.
Start the night before. The beans must be picked over and washed even if you shelled them yourself. "Picking over" means that you look at the beans and pick out any stones, lumps of dirt, or discolored beans. You will probably find very little foreign matter and few spoiled beans, but you should always look. Then you put the beans into water and pick out any that float. Floating beans are probably hollow and may contain bugs. Then you lift the beans out of the water, using your fingers or a slotted spoon, so that the small particles remain in the water. If the water is visibly dirty, wash the beans a second time. If you dally over this, the beans will start to soak and the resultant wrinkling of the skins may cause some sinkers to start floating. If you stirred the beans well and are sure that you got all the floating beans when you first put them into the water, don't worry about beans that start to float later — unless they look funny.
If you want to wash and soak in the same container, pour the beans and water into a colander, then run some water over them and rinse out the pot before putting the beans back.
If you intend to cook the beans in a stainless- steel or enamel pot, soak them in the cooking pot. If you intend to use a cast iron pot, soak them in a stainless or glass container.
If you happen to have some whole grains in the house, soak a tablespoon or two of brown rice or whatever with the beans. (Whole celery seed is a nice addition to soaking beans.) After soaking all night and simmering all day, grain will dissolve entirely and add body to the broth.
The next morning, turn the fire on under the beans and add a tablespoon of cornmeal (optional, but, like the grain, it adds body). Throw in a spoonful of oatmeal, rolled oats, or other cereal if it strikes your fancy, or if you wanted to add whole grain and didn't have any. Some folks like a grated potato. Add the bone and a chopped stalk of celery. Add water to the kettle if necessary. A touch of acid is needed; add a chunk of tomato if they are in season; else use a drop of lemon juice or vinegar, or up to two tablespoons of canned tomatoes.
(Note: if your water tastes bad, use bottled water or rain water to cook your beans. Some mineral waters toughen beans.)
Any ground starches you add should be put in while the water is cold, but other things can be added in the intervals of cooking breakfast. If you are in a hurry in the mornings, put stuff into a bowl in the refrigerator the night before. Dump seasonings in before breakfast, switch on the crock pot, come home to a hot meal.
If the pot is thin, the heat should be low from the beginning. A heavy pot can be brought to the boil on high. When the soup begins to boil, reduce the heat as far as you can without putting the fire out. It should be just enough to keep the soup moving slightly. It may be necessary to use a flame tamer. I found that one of my burner grates would stack stably on top of another, and used that to move the pot farther from the fire.
That's all you need to do before time to eat, but it's nice to add some chopped onion and some carrot sticks about an hour before suppertime. You can add the carrot and onion at the beginning if you aren't going to be around; if so, use only a teeny bit of carrot.
The soup will be done enough to sample for lunch — a big help on a busy day.
All kinds of seasonings harmonize with beans. I like garlic, thyme, oregano, tobasco, and garlic. Scrounge around in the spice cupboard and get creative. If you add significant amounts of vegetables, you have to call it "mulligan," and should use leftover meat instead of a bone. ("Mulligan" is thick soup or thin stew made of leftovers and beans.) Put pre-cooked meat in late in the cooking.
Serve bean soup with freshly-baked cornbread, if possible. Bake it in iron if you can; if you haven't any cornstick pans, use an iron skillet. (A big skillet for lots of crust, a small skillet for lots of middle.) No matter what it says in the recipe, put the fat that is called for into the pan, not into the batter. Leave cornstick pans in the iron in the oven during preheating so that the batter hisses when you pour it in. Add fat at the last minute so that it won't burn. If you bake in a skillet, have it cold at the beginning of cooking; the bread will brown faster on the bottom anyway. (I flip the bread like a pancake about ten minutes before serving.)
If you use a solid fat and are baking in a cake tin or other thin container (muffin tins are good), put the tin into the oven until the fat melts before pouring the batter.
If you use cornstick pans, a pastry brush is almost a necessity for greasing the hot pans. With caution, you can put oil into each hollow and then, using two potholders, tip the pan this way and that to distribute the oil. Don't try it if you are being stingy with the fat. (Because the pans are hot, it doesn't matter to your technique whether you are using grease or oil.)
If the broth is weak, consider tomato juice, shoyu, vegetable boullion, minced onion, herbs, and smoked yeast.
A spoonful of shoyu or tamari can make the taste and color richer without introducing the taste of soy sauce. Too much shoyu, and all your food tastes the same. Like fire, it's great stuff if you don't let it get out of hand.
Egg riffles are one cup flour in a small bowl, make a hole, dIrop in one large egg. with a fork, work egg into flour till you can use your fingers to rub it into little clumps. Drop into boiling broth. You can add a pinch of salt to the flour, but i depend on the broth to season the dumpling. You cook them till they are tender. It doesn't take long. 15 min. maybe.
I don't remember hamburger as the meat. I had it
made with the canned broth that grandma made with
the bones the folks gave her after they butchered.
They made sure the butcher left plenty of shreds of
meat. When grandma would open a can of that, it
came out in one jellied lump, full of pieces of
meat. I spect by the time you had her soup the
folks had quit raising a calf to butcher. Shoot!
Time you were old enough to remember, you were
going to Florida for the school session! I have
been unable to duplicate Mom's pot roast to my
satisfaction. She did it all on top the stove. I
did it once to my great satisfaction, up at
Nancy's, when Joy and i went up to see if we could
help her out, after her back surgery.
SAL
Rub the thyme; leave the other herbs intact, to be fished out while serving. (The garlic is good spread on millet bread.)
After browning the hamburger, add the celery and stir around until cooked. Add the onions and stir around until translucent. Add the peppers and stir around until greasy.
Dump in everything else. Rinse each can with a little cold water and add it to the soup. Cook over very low heat for an hour.
I found a recipe for wonton wrappers on the Web that looked very like Mom's recipe for noodles:
Ingredients
Mom used a "ladle" of broth instead of the water, and didn't measure the flour. She made a well in a pile of flour, put the wet ingredients into it, and worked them until they had taken up enough flour. I don't recall as she put salt in. Salt would be rather surplus to requirements when the noodles are going to be boiled in a salted broth.
Noodles were generously floured during the rolling and cutting, and flour was used to keep them from sticking together while drying -- but they shouldn't dry too much. Enough flour would stick to the noodles to thicken the broth a little.
The sheet of dough was rolled up, with flour between layers to keep it from sticking together when you sliced coils of noodles off it.
It's also done to cut the sheet into strips and stack the strips, but I don't remember Mom doing it.
Having only two people to feed, when I made noodles, I used a one-ounce egg from my game hens and no water or broth.