Red Bean and Bacon Soup

Waiting for his oysters

Saturday started out rather bumpy.  Our best laid morning plans quickly went down the drain and instead were replaced by a trip to the minor med for my husband, who thought (and was correct) that he had a pretty nasty sinus infection.  I, of course, stayed home with little A.  Who knows what he would have caught in that waiting room?  Dysentery, probably.

But the meal we had on Saturday night made up for the rocky morning.  While my husband braved the minor med I putzed around in the kitchen, drank coffee, played with the baby (did I mention I love the mornings with him?  It's when he's in the best mood) and prepared the marinade for Chicken Satay.  I know, another Mark Bittman recipe...but I couldn't help it.  I had the other half of the chicken thighs in the freezer and Bittman's recipes are so foolproof that I couldn't turn it down.  And remember my last post when I said we were in a rut?  Well, I had a request for the same cabbage and carrot salad and the same glazed carrots to be served with the Satay.  So, maybe we're sliding into another rut again. 

Sunday morning called for buttermilk waffles and bacon since my husband was feeling so much better.  After we were finished (isn't is always after?), we rationalized this fatty, fatty meal by deciding to do next what we had originally planned to do on Saturday - go take a long walk down by the river.  With the baby.  And two dogs.  After that exertion (my goodness, the effort to pack up two dogs and a baby...exhausting), we decided to treat ourselves again to some oysters, beer, and fried okra at Flying Fish.  The baby enjoyed his oysters (kidding!).

And then I topped off my day by making this red beans and bacon soup.  I left out the tomatoes, celery, and Sherry and stuck to the 1-1/2 cups of carrots.  I also skipped cooking the bacon beforehand and just threw the bacon pieces in with the broth so it could cook along with the beans.  So I basically didn't follow the recipe at all, but the result was a nice, smoky, meaty bean stew.  Exactly what I wanted to have for my lunches this week since it is so cold today.  And for a second there I was going to type something about how healthy this was (in order to counteract the fried goodness and beer a few hours prior), but who am I trying to kid?  There was a lot of bacon.