At Home with Shara C: 5 of 12 — Pressure Cooked Ham and Pinto Bean Soup

I didn’t forget my 12 Days of Pintos plan. I promise. December just got crazy. We relied on fast, convenient foods, but even as I type that I realize it is just an excuse. Dried beans can be a fast and convenient food. Sure they require a little advanced work — an no I am actually not talking about soaking, but more I refer to planning. I can think of several ways they can actually be quite fast and convenient.

Slow cooker — now here me out before you laugh at me.....yes I know slow cooker and fast don’t go together....but for me fast is about the amount of effort I have to put into something. If I know tomorrow is going to be a busy day I can simply set out the slow cooker tonight and put my dry beans in, sprinkle any seasonings on I am going to use. I cover the pot and in the morning I add my liquid and cook. My time is minimal, they cook while I do other things, and when the day is near end I have a “fast” meal ready. However, for my world this pretty much works only for the evening meal.

So what if you want beans or bean soup for lunch? Well there are several options to use dried beans, which are more economical than buying tinned beans.

If you are a home canner, you can pressure can your own. Most of us canners have the sunk cost of both the canner and jars....some even reuse the lids....while I don’t reuse lids and I haven’t tried Tattler’s brand lids....I still find canning my own to be quite economical. I also like that I can control the amount of salt added. Home canned beans, like all home canned products, are recommended to be boiled for 10 minutes. (I’m throwing that out there as a precaution.....not a heated debate statement before anyone shoots me. This isn’t an issue for me because I either use my home canned beans as an ingredient in a cooked dish or as the base for soup and they are well heated by the time I finish.). Either way, home canned beans are just as convenient and fast as purchased beans if you have had the foresight to can them. Yes, canning does take time, but running a canner of beans while you are detailing your kitchen or perhaps doing your weekly baking lets you effectively do two things at once.

Of course, my favorite options is — yes, if you are a frequent reader here, it is probably easy to guess — a pressure cooker. I have both a stove top and an electric pressure cooker. (While I do use the Instant Pot brand, they are all relatively interchangeable with a little tweaking. I use two methods of cooking dried beans in the pressure cooker depending on what my calendar shows for the day.

Scenario 1 — Calendar shows I will be out of the house and coming in about an hour before I want to serve supper. I, being tired the night before go to bed without setting out all the slow cooker “stuff”....I confess it has been known to happen. (There’s a reason I set up the coffee pot for the next morning when I am cleaning up supper dishes.). In the morning, I simply put my beans in a large bowl or pot and cover several inches over with water. Depending upon the weather (if it is winter I don’t bother) I may refrigerate them while they soak for the day. When I come home, I simply drain my beans, pop them in the pressure cooker with whatever I want to add, set my timer for 30 to 40 minutes and go about preparing the rest of our meal.
Scenario 2 — I am going to be home all day. Maybe we changed our mind about what we wanted to eat. Maybe I realized I need to use some ingredients up. Maybe — just maybe I love to use the pressure cooker, but I am slack and rarely soak my beans. All three of those happen in my life....one more often than the others, but in an attempt to not incriminate myself I’ll let you guess which one that is.

Now that I have prattled on, I’m sure you are asking yourself, “Is Shara going anywhere with this?” The answer is a resounding, “Yes!”

Today we have a forecast for snow. Yes, it does occasionally snow in Eastern North Carolina. Yes, we do like all Southern towns and shut down. Yes, I am indeed freezing. All the standard stereotypes of Southerners in snow does indeed have a basis in real life.

So three things have happened:

1. I am going to be home all day.

2. We have changed our minds about what we want to eat....thanks to the temperatures.

3. I have some things to use up.

Basically today is Scenario 2 and the perfect time to share another pinto bean idea with you. As promised, I’ve found an online recipe that everyone can easily access. Pressure Cooker Smoky Ham Hock and Pinto Bean Soup from Pressure Cooking Today. However, as usual I’ve made a few changes. The version below shows what I did and shares my results.