Nancy's Navy Bean Soup

This goes with the cornbread recipe that I posted last night.

• 1 lb. dry navy beans
• 2 quarts (8 cups) water
• 2 teaspoons salt
• 1/3 teaspoon pepper
• 1 coarsely chopped onion
• 1 cup coarsely chopped ham
• baking soda for rinsing beans

1. Sprinkle baking soda over dry beans that have been in a colander.

2. Rinse beans.

3. Search the beans for bad quality beans and remove them.

4. Pour rinsed beans into a crockpot.

5. Add 2 quarts water.

6. Add chopped onion and ham.

7. Add salt and pepper. Stir.

8. Cook on the low crockpot setting for 10 hours.

9. Serve with cornbread and enjoy.

Nancy's Cornbread

• 1 cup cornmeal
• 1 cup all-purpose flour
• 1/3 cup sugar
• 4 teaspoons baking powder
• ¾ teaspoon salt
• 2 large eggs
• 1 cup milk (can be fat-free)
• ¼ cup canola oil
• 8 ¼ ounces can creamed corn
• Bakers Joy spray
• Butter (optional)
• Honey (optional)

These instructions are specifically for one of those Nordicware heavy cast aluminum muffin pans. It is one of the Platinum Collection for even rising and uniform cooking. Often they come in various shapes and make smaller muffins than a cupcake pan. The temperature and time has been adjusted to accommodate my acorn-shaped mini muffin pan. If you don’t have one, I would consider getting one. They are fun and do an excellent job. (This is an unsolicited plug for the pan.) These corn muffins are great for serving with navy bean soup.

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

2. Stir together the cornmeal, flour, sugar, baking powder, and salt.

3. Add eggs, milk, oil, and creamed corn and stir for 50 strokes.

4. Spray pan with Baker’s Joy before each batch.

5.. Add 1 tablespoon batter to each mini muffin cup. I had to bake mine in three batches to make one recipe. It made 42 acorn cornbread mini muffins.

6. Bake each batch for 12 minutes at 375 degrees.

7. Remove from oven and turn pan upside down to release muffins.

8. Serve with butter or honey if desired.

Nancy's Spinach Salad with Creamy Dressing

Salad Items:

1 sack of baby spinach

1 onion chopped sauteed

croutons (see recipe of February 26, 2011)

1 pound bacon, cooked crispy, drained and crumbled

reserve bacon drippings

black pepper to taste

Nancy’s Sour Cream Dressing

1 – 16 oz. carton of lite sour cream

¼ cup cider vinegar

6 tablespoons sugar

¼ teaspoon paprika

1. Mix the dressing ingredients together before doing the other things. Refrigerate.

2. Cook the bacon until crispy: drain, cool, crumble and set aside.

3. Saute the chopped onion and remove from the drippings.

4. Divide the greens into four salad bowls.

5. Drizzle a tablespoon of hot oil on each bowl of spinach.

6. Add sauteed onions to the bowl.

7. Add dressing.

8. Add croutons.

9. Add bacon crumbles.

10. Grind some black pepper over the top

11. Serve.

Roast Beef and Noodles

• 1-3 pound beef round roast
• 2 packages Pillsbury Homestyle dry gravy mix
• 1 cup water
• 2 ¼ cups flour
• 3 eggs
• 1 ½ teaspoon salt

1. 13 hours in advance of serving, place thawed roast in crockpot on low setting (16 hours if roast is frozen).

2. Sprinkle one package of the gravy mix over the roast.

3. Pour one cup water over the sprinkled roast and place the lid on the crockpot.

4. Turn roast halfway during the cooking time, if possible. If not, don’t worry about it.

To make the noodles:

Using the ingredients listed above, make in separate batches 3 times. (It is much easier to handle the dough, mix it thoroughly, and keep the mess contained.):

• ¾ cup flour
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 1 egg

5. On a large bar pan (to contain the flour), for each ¾ cup flour, stir in ½ teaspoon salt into the flour to distribute.

6. Mound the flour and salt mixture, then punch down the center of the mound and add an egg to the middle. Work with your fingers until thoroughly mixed. It will be kind of dry.

7. Place the ball of dough on waxed paper and roll out as thin as possible with a pizza roller.

8. Use a pizza cutter to cut the sheet of dough into ¼” strips.

9. Again, using the pizza cutter, cut the strips across in one-inch lengths.

10. Toss so that more air can reach the sides of the noodles to dry slightly.

11. About 2 hours before serving time, fill a 2 quart saucepan with water about 2/3 full. Add just a pinch of salt to get the water boiling.

12. When boiling add all the noodles, stirring to keep them from sticking together.

13. Boil about 15 minutes, until the water has cooked down somewhat. They should not be dry and there should still be some water between them, but it will be rather starchy.

14. Add the other packet of gravy mix to the crockpot and stir. The fat from the meat will aid in keeping the gravy mix from lumping up.

15. Add the noodles, water and all to the crockpot. And stir. If you have not already done so, turn the meat.

16. Continue cooking for another hour with the lid on.

17. Remove the meat and either slice it (if you do this, you will need to let it cool a bit so it will cooperate). Or cut in two inch bands and then shred the bands. Shredding is the method that I most often use.

18. With a dipper, plate some noodles with the gravy.

19. Place some roast beef with the noodles and serve.

Sausage Bread

• 1 lb. Sage bulk sausage
• 8 oz. Shredded mozzarella
• 1 loaf Pillsbury French loaf in a tube
• 1 egg white

1. Brown and stir sausage.

2. Spray baking sheet. Spread out French loaf. Pour a strip of the browned sausage down the middle of the French loaf. Spread the mozzarella over the top. Bring the sides of the French loaf up together and seal.

3. Brush with egg white.

4. Bake at 350 degrees for 30 minutes.

5. Remove from oven and let sit for 5 minutes.

6. Slice into 8 pieces and serve.