A Lovely Surprise

Everybody makes mistakes, and sometimes a lovely surprise ensues.  As I’ve mentioned, we get all our meat from local sources, and I’m a member of a buying club from Triple S farms, a family owned and run operation specializing in pastured, grass-fed, organic meats.  (See their site at www.triplesfarms.com)  I order the meat online once a month, and it’s delivered to an Urbana parking lot on the following Saturday morning.  This time was a big order, since I wasn’t in town for pickup the previous month.  I arrived, and as usual, they handed me a cooler bag full of meat and a receipt, I handed them the cooler bag from last time, and a check for the amount.  When I arrived home I discovered that one of my smoked sausages was a Jamaican smoked sausage instead of the plain one I’d ordered.  I could either complain and get a refund, or discover something new.  I opted for the second, considering it a new challenge.

So, today was another slow cooker enterprise.  I’d soaked black beans last night, but got up too late to do anything with them.  Unfortunately for him, but fortunately for me, my husband was staying home sick with a nasty cold; I wrote explicit instructions for him to add a minced onion (again, the potent ones from Greg; I figured with his cold, it might actually help him to cry a little), five minced cloves of garlic from the co-op (I called later to make sure he didn’t confuse cloves of garlic with heads of garlic), a couple of bay leaves (“those dry, crumbly leaves in a jar?!”), ¼ teaspoon of allspice (which I always associate with Jamaican food), a carton (4 cups) of organic chicken stock, 2 cups of water, and the Jamaican smoked sausage cut into 2-inch pieces.  I added some salt later.  I had him cook on high for 4 hours, then I reduced the heat to low when I came home for lunch, to cook for another 4 hours.

Jasmine rice, coconut milk, and pineapple are hardly local, but, hey, I had a theme going!  And I bought them all at our co-op.  When I got home, I made some brown jasmine rice, adding ½ cup of organic coconut milk to the rice with the water, which added a rich flavor and creamy texture.  I was glad to have rice on one side of the bowl, as the black bean soup had quite a kick!  With some pineapple and some red bell peppers on the side, we had a meal that would chase away any cold virus for sure.