Good morning everyone,

I’m literally going to stop asking what could possibly happen next because no doubt the universe will fucking show us.

On a very positive note, this happened last Sunday right in front of the right house as I was preparing this meal.

That was a very peaceful gathering of protesters. Probably 300-400 of them. They were boisterous and a bit noisy but very spirited and overall very positive. I was out in their midst a couple of times in support.

A little background: the city where I live has the nickname of “Mayberry” because it feels like old time Middle America. In other words the population is very white in makeup. To have an event of this importance and with this much spirit and meaning in this town is almost unheard of. It was very powerful.

I’m also very glad they protested peacefully and left before the curfew kicked in.

Oh yeah that’s a whole ‘nother thing; the fucking curfews from last week. LA County was under curfew each night from Sunday through Wednesday night with the hours varying between 5:00 PM and 9:00 PM.

Remember the goddamn chaos when the “Safe at Home” rule kicked in due to the pandemic?

Well guess what fucking happened when we were approaching curfew time this past week?

Yep, another motherfucking panic-buying experience at the stores again.

They weren’t grabbing everything off the fucking shelves this time, just getting what they needed but holy fucking shit did they flood the store with people. Social distancing my ass, these places were fucking packed.

If I see one more flood of people at the goddamn grocery store EVER again in my life!!!!

Anyway.

That was the vibe last Sunday while I was preparing today’s menu. Not exactly a relaxing time in the kitchen but we did our best.

Speaking of “Safe at home” remember that first weekend when all holy fucking hell was coming down on us? March 14-15? Yeah, that one. That weekend eldest brother right ventured out in the very early AM to try and find any food stuff that would have long term storage/usage ability. He was able to find two packages of beans. A bag of small white beans, that if you recall we used to make this.

That was our bean with bacon soup from a few episodes ago.

He also snagged a package of these:

red beans.

Well guess what we can do with red beans and our still fairly large supply of rice and, oh yeah we’ve got a leftover hambone from Easter too?

Hell yes we did.

Red beans and rice and cornbread!

Before you get into the whole “Didn’t you do this exact meal last season?” business just remember not a single one of us foresaw the events of this ridiculous damn year.

Yes we did this last year.

I thought we could reconfigure this a bit plus this ABSOLUTELY fits into our “cooking during a pandemic” theme that was forced onto us this year.

Think about it. Red beans? – On hand. Rice? – On hand. Leftover hambone? – That’s smart usage of a damn leftover hambone!

I had everything for this meal – with the exception of the veggies – already purchased and available and THAT’S the shit I’m talking about.

We did pretty much duplicate the meal because it’s one of my favorites. The meal today DOES INDEED use homemade chicken stock too so let’s do that first as a bonus recipe. I made the stock a day ahead.

Homemade chicken stock!

Some chicken legs or thighs or hell use a whole cut up chicken. The key here is the fat and skin. They give the stock it’s gelatinous goodness so chicken breasts aren’t ideal.

1 onion – rough chopped

3-4 celery stalks – rough chopped

2-3 carrots – rough chopped

4-5 cloves of garlic – chopped

6 cups of water

1 teaspoon of dried thyme

2 bay leaves

1/2 teaspoon of dried sage.

Fresh herbs – use what you have but I used 1 bunch of rosemary and some sprigs of parsley

1/2 tablespoon of salt

some grinds of black pepper

Just know this stock is also the base of my chicken soup recipe and can be used in ANY recipe calling for chicken stock.

Chop up the onion, celery and carrots.

Grab that package of chicken. Legs today, yes all of them.

Mince the garlic up and then collect your fresh herbs.

Fresh from the balcony! Give them a rinse and remove any extra large stems although that’s not even really essential.

Now grab a big ass pot and get everything in there!

Bring to a boil then reduce heat to a low simmer. Park a lid partly ajar on top and let this fucker go for oh say 2 hours? Two and a half hours? Sounds good. Cook until the chicken falls off the bone.

Turn off the heat, then let this cool completely.

Drain the stock through a collander.

Now you want to pick through the cooked chicken bits, there’s still plenty of tasty meat in there. Sort through the chicken and reserve the chicken bits for whatever the fuck you want. I added some spices and some chile tepin and rolled the chicken up into a burrito a couple of days later. Damn delicious too.

Feel free to discard the cooked veggies. It’s not food waste because they did their damn job and imparted their essence to the stock, there’e nothing left to extract from them.

Save 3 cups of the stock in a storage vessel for the red beans and rice then measure the remaining stock out.

There was also about 3 cups leftover. Put into a plastic container and label with the date and the amount of stock inside then stash this shit in your freezer for future use.

This is still the day before so fuck it, let’s soak our beans overnight while we’re at it.

You know the damn drill.

Sort and rinse and cover with enough water to cover by about 2 inches.

Now clean up your damn mess and grab a cocktail. Your work for the day is complete.

Red Beans and Rice!

1 pound of red beans that were soaked overnight

3 tablespoons of olive oil

1 onion chopped

1 bell pepper de-seeded and chopped, store was out of green pepper so used red today

3 stalks of celery chopped

5-6 cloves of garlic chopped

3 cups of our homemade chicken stock

3 cups of water

Couple of bay leaves

1/2 teaspoon of cayenne pepper

1/4 teaspoon of sage

1 teaspoon of dried thyme

1 teaspoon of essence or creole seasoning of choice – essence here

Your leftover hambone. I used smoked sausage last time but this was a really cool way to use the leftover hambone from Easter.

Some cooked rice

Let’s take a look at them beans that have soaked overnight.

That’s some red ass water alright. Hence the nomenclature. Go ahead and drain the beans now.

Let’s put a chop on the trinity: yes, the onion, celery and bell pepper.

See that one right there is the trinity while this one…

is a mire poix. We have indeed had this discussion before.

Unlike the mire poix from yesterday we’re going to get a fine chop on the trinity.

Like so.

Go ahead and mince your garlic while you’re at it.

Let’s get that hambone ready for the party.

That would be the bone from this meal.

From our Easter Dinner post.

For the love of Christ people, don’t throw away your hambone.

Take out your trusty cooking pot and add in the oil. When the oil is hot start sauteing the trinity. Give ’em about 6-7 minutes until they are tender.

Next we add in the beans and the hambone.

Add in the stock, water and your seasonings.

Bring to a boil then reduce the heat to a low simmer, do the slightly ajar lid on top dealie and simmer away for 2 and 1/2 hours.

Around the two hour mark, let’s get our hambone out of there and let it cool down enough to handle.

Chop the ham into bits and add back into the pot.

Cook for the last half hour and turn off the heat. Let cool a bit then break out the “boomstick!”

Blend up about 1/3 or so of the beans to give them a nice creamy texture, like this shit.

Let’s get after the rest of the meal. Just reheat the beans when the rice and cornbread are done. They’ll be fine.

Get yourself some rice.

Then go ahead and cook that rice.

Look folks, if you want the exact recipe for the cornbread it’s in here somewhere. It just feels wrong to give you the same recipe for what’s probably the 12th time.

But you do get some photos!

Mix the wet ingredients in one bowl and the dry in another.

Combine by gently mixing until just mixed – don’t overwork – then place in a greased cooking vessel and cook at the allotted temperature (400 degrees) for the allotted time (about 25 minutes) until it looks like this.

Grab a hunk why don’t ye?

You know the assembly work already.

Get a scoop of rice, a ladle of beans – make sure there’s some chunks of ham in there – and today I used a garnish of fresh from the garden parsley.

Now be sure to add on as much or as little of this stuff…

as needed. Use your hot sauce of choice. The vinegar bite is a key ingredient though. Keep that in mind.

Want a look?

Shit yes.

You all already know this is delicious so I can skip the summation.

What I will say is this is textbook usage of your on-hand pandemic larder and a damn delicious result from such.

I promise to get around to some new stuff in the weeks to come but it just doesn’t feel right using ingredients that not everyone has access to.

I’m going to keep on theme until we see some semblance of normality in this upside down existence.

However fucking long that is.

We had another gathering yesterday and I was there.

It ain’t easy but nothing about change is. It’s going to be painful as any major change should be.

But we will be here to tell about it.

Shit, my granddaughters are going to tell the tale before this shit is done.

Keep safe good folks because I really do appreciate all of you.

Let’s be nice to each other and let’s come together as one people.

Liberty and justice for all.

If I had one word to contribute it would be “VOTE!”

Much love folks.

PEACE!