A quick post about favorite comfort food in the winter months. I’m a big fan of slow cooking in a crockpot. I work from home and lose track of time during the day. It’s pretty simple to throw everything in a crockpot and let it simmer all day.

This one – you do need to soak the beans overnight and if you have a non-frozen ham hock that is a plus. Some pre-planning is necessary. You can find some recipes online that don’t require soaking the beans first – but trust me it’s better just to soak them.

I had to improvise some this time and I’m pretty happy with how this turned out. Note – when I say Chorizo – I’m not talking about Mexican Chorizo. We lived in Idaho in our youth and love Basque Chorizo – if you can get it they are amazing!

Ingredients

1 pound Red Beans soaked overnight in plenty of water.
1 large onion
2 Pasilla or Poblano Peppers
1 Jalapeno if you want (I didn’t this time)
6 cloves garlic chopped
3 Chorizo (Basque Variety) you can use Andouille as well
1 Smoked Ham Hock – get a big one with a lot of meat
Salt to taste
2 tsp Black Pepper
1 tsp Cumin
2 tsp Basil
2 tsp thyme
1 tsp Chilli powder (See my disaster post on this stuff – it turned out great though!)
Water – this varies depending on how well your beans soaked. I use between 6-8 cups of water
Rice of your choice (We use Jasmine Rice)

Start in the morning – this takes about 8 hours. Put everything except the rice in the crockpot – you will need a LARGE crockpot depending on how big of a ham hock you obtained. Mine usually comes to the brim.

Cook on Low for roughly eight hours or so, until the beans are done. If it seems too watery, you can bump up to HIGH for the last hour with the lid off.

Pull the bones, extra fat, and cartilage off the ham hock and pull apart the meat – remix into the beans.

Serve over white rice.

Makes enough to feed at least an entire infantry division.