I'm 70 and I Make Five Suppers From One $11 Pot of Beans

📖 These suppers written down with the measures: https://vernasbook.com so you're not guessing at the stove — my printed cookbook ships to your door! I am seventy years old, I count my pennies at the grocery store, and last week I ate five suppers out of one pot of beans that cost me about eleven dollars. Five different suppers, and not one of them tasted like leftovers. The fifth is the cheapest and the one I like best, so stay for it. 🥄 WHAT THE WEEK COST ME (priced this week, so take it as a map and not a promise) • 1 lb pinto beans (half of a 2 lb bag): about $1.25 • 1 smoked ham hock: $5 to $6 • 3 onions: about $1.25 • Self-rising cornmeal mix for 2 skillets of cornbread: about $1 • 1 cup rice: about $0.50 • Egg, flour, lard, milk: about $1 Total: roughly $10 to $11, a little over $2 a supper. 🍲 THE POT (Sunday) 1 lb pinto beans, picked over. Soak overnight in 4 quarts of water with 3 tablespoons salt, then drain and rinse. Add 1 smoked ham hock (about 3/4 lb), 1 chopped onion, and 8 cups water. Bring to a boil, skim the foam, then simmer barely moving, lid cocked, 1 1/2 to 2 1/2 hours. Lift out the hock, chop the meat, and put it back. Mash a cup of beans and stir them in. Now taste and salt (about a teaspoon), plus black pepper and a pinch of red pepper. 🔥 THE FIVE SUPPERS 1. Sunday: soup beans with cornbread and raw onion. 2. Monday: bean cakes (2 cups drained beans, 1/2 cup cornmeal, 1 minced onion, 1 egg, salt, pepper, rest 10 minutes, fry in bacon grease). Freeze four for a sixth supper. 3. Tuesday: beans and broth over a scoop of rice, pepper vinegar at the table. 4. Wednesday: half-batch pot liquor dumplings, lid on tight for 15 minutes, no peeking. 5. Thursday: crumbled cornbread with the last of the pot liquor and a raw onion on top. If beans give you trouble, I have a whole video on that: https://youtu.be/vK24katwNfE I am a cook, not a doctor. The ham hock is salty, so taste before you add any salt, and ask your doctor what is right for you. If this saves you one more night of "what is for supper," I would take a subscribe as a personal kindness. It costs you nothing and it helps me keep making these for you. Have a blessed day. -Verna CHAPTERS 0:00 Five suppers from one pot 0:26 What the whole week costs 1:39 Buy the right beans 1:59 Supper 1, Sunday: the pot 4:55 Supper 2, Monday: bean cakes 6:23 Supper 3, Tuesday: beans and rice 7:09 Supper 4, Wednesday: pot liquor dumplings 9:04 Supper 5, Thursday: the cheapest, and my favorite 10:14 A few honest words 10:39 What my mother said about the pot 11:01 Your turn #budgetmeals #soupbeans #pintobeans #appalachiancooking