Suffering succotash.

So, I put a picture of last night's dinner on the internets, and folks liked it. Some more background. Underneath, rice grits from Two Boroughs Larder. Not perfect on this but a nice change from grits, and somehow more soigne than rice. The actual succotash (I am not clear on what succotash really is, and aim to keep it like that) I'd made the day before, because of leftover dark butterbeans from making Sifton's Oxtail stew. The next part is probably not necessary, but I did have some old odds and ends of Benton's hanging around, so in the interest of conserving our dwindling supply of Benton's bacon, I cubed the ham, and cooked in a little butter and then braised in vermouth. Good flavor, but a little on the chewy side, as one might expect from a country ham with some years on it. To return:  I then quickly cooked red onion and carrot and celery I had around in the ham pan, and tossed all that w/ the butterbeans. I then tossed the butterbeans, etc. w/ a dressing w lots of minced shallots and Zatarain's mustard (increasingly the house mustard around here). 

I'd been thinking that the succotash alone would make a nice lunch, but then yesterday was my first pickup from the CAFE, and I wanted to do some things with my stuff. So, I cooked up a couple of strips of Benton's after all, then cooked down turnip greens in that, w/ a splash of cane vinegar (the definitive all purpose vinegar around here). Finally, I poached the gorgeous local eggs from Son Rise Acres, and scattered the radishes and bacon around the perimeter. A pretty satisfying and not too hearty meal, employing mostly stuff that was around. 

Comments

[Marco Romano]

According to the Narragansett-Wiki, msickquatash is "bolied corn kernels"