Keep Pressure on It
I made myself get up and out of bed this morning since it’s back to work tomorrow. After digging through my SIM cards, I pulled out my old HTC phones and tried activating one for Summer to use. It took me a while to get them going, and the SIM I found didn’t work, but I think I’ve about figured out a plan.
Once Eaddie was up, she and Summer had some leftovers for breakfast, and then Summer went to work out. Eaddie spent all day watching Arrow, and I bounced around the house, mostly still working on the phones. I still had a ham bone in the fridge that I wanted to throw into the Instant Pot, so I talked Summer into running to the store for an onion, some carrots, and celery. I had enough of everything else here to try making some soup. I don’t remember my parents ever using dried beans before, but I found some Instant Pot recipes that I could blend together and tweak to make it work.
I sauteed what was left of the meaty ham bits with the onion, carrots, celery, garlic, and olive oil, while Summer sorted through the bag of organic great northern beans that John left me years and years ago. Then I added the two cups of beans, the mostly cleaned ham bone, eight cups of water, and some fresh rosemary and thyme to the pot. I originally set it to pressure cook on high for 35 minutes, but then after depressurizing and trying the beans, they were still a bit hard. Fortunately it didn’t take very long for the pot to regain pressure, and another 20 minutes finished them right up.
While the Instant Pot was going, I called the jury line to see when I would have to report for jury duty or selection, or whatever it was that I was summoned to do. The line was busy for quite a while, but eventually I got through and received a message that my summons was cancelled, or at the very least put on hold. I still have mixed feelings about that, but at least it’s one less thing I have to worry about for the time being.
Once the soup was done, I went through the surprisingly long process of depressurizing the pot again, and served up three bowls. The ham hock had nearly completely disintegrated, and all of the flavors poured out into the soup. The girls really liked it, so I called Julie to see if she wanted to try some, but she wasn’t hungry. I thought it was too sweet because it was a glazed ham and I used all of the juices from the pan as well. Next time I’ll avoid the drippings if they’re sweet. Overall it was a great success, and I can’t wait to try cooking another animal carcass. I think I’m even a little more excited to try cooking more dry beans, because they’re just so cheap. This thing is probably killer with chili too.
We watched The Office while we ate, with a windstorm in the background. Then the girls had to head out to pick up Autumn and get ready for school in the morning. I spent the evening hand-washing dishes, partly because I wasn’t completely sold on using the dishwasher on the Instant Pot, partly because I didn’t really have a full load of dishes, and partly for just a little bit of old school Zen to wrap up the week off.
All of that, and I forgot to take a picture. Guess I’ll have to do it all over again.
