Lima Beans, Fried Potatoes and Cornbread

Ken and I both love beans and cornbread. We also are open to trying different kinds of beans. One that I know we love is baby lima beans, so this is what I made last night. The combination of beans, fried potatoes and cornbread remind me so much of many dinners I had as a child around my family table.

Eating beans and cornbread at our house was a ritual. Mom would cook the beans, make the cornbread and fry the potatoes. She would then put everything on the table with the following condiments: onions, dill pickles, salt and pepper. We made our own plates.

My plate would start with the cornbread crumbled on the bottom, add fried potatoes, and then the beans with lots of juice. On top of this I would chop up some onions, chop up a dill pickle and then salt and pepper it all. Oh my goodness, I can see us all right now. For some reason when I remember this meal it is around our table in our big kitchen in Camby, Indiana. I’m sure we had it other places we lived, but that is the place I remember.

Here are some pictures of what I made:

To make this supper, I soaked one small bag of baby lima beans overnight. I looked and picked the beans for bad ones, rinsed them and then covered them with water and put a lid on and let them set on the stove overnight. The next day I poured the water off and rinsed the beans again. I then well-covered the beans with water and let them come to a hard boil for 2 minutes, turned the heat to simmer and let the beans cook for about 2 hours. You will see the liquid begin to thicken. At about the 2 hour mark, I added a chopped medium onion, 2 stalks of celery, chopped, and 2 large carrots, chopped. Let cook for another hour. Add 2 teaspoons sea salt and 1 teaspoon pepper. If the beans are not tender at this point, let this continue to cook until they are tender. Then turn the heat off and let cool if you are not serving immediately. I like to cook mine early in the day and then reheat them in the evening for dinner because I think most soups are better the second day!

I fried the potatoes in a little canola oil, about 2 Tablespoons, but Saladmaster has an electric skillet that has oil in the core, and it will fry all kinds of things crispy without any oil in the skillet at all. I think I’m going to get that. I’ll try to find the link for Saladmaster’s skillet and then edit this post. Check back if you are interested.

For the cornbread, I just used a very simple cornbread recipe with 100% stone ground cornmeal.

1 cup all-purpose unbleached flour
1 cup all purpose yellow cornmeal
1 egg (I used egg replacer)
1/4 cup milk (I used plain, organic rice milk)
1 cup water
1 tablespoon olive oil

Mix all ingredients.
Bake at 400 degrees Farenheit for about 20 minutes. I bake mine in an iron skillet. YUM the best!

I hope you all enjoy this simple, country meal as much as we did.

Happy, Healthy Eating

Jackie V.