Bean Soup I
15 January 2025 | St. Marys, GA
Cap'n Chef Andy | Chilly AM, Warm PM

If I am not taking pictures or writing it could be that I am depressed, but also there is a cycle in creativity, unless you are a manic artist. It seems sometimes that the extremists are the ones who get anything done. You have to play life like a hockey game, give it your all, then take a restful break. Then you are ready to go again.
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I finished the last of the stroganoff stuffed cabbage. It is like many other things, delightful at first, but not your everyday meal, day after day. If you can make something that is enough to keep you from going out and experiencing some other cook, then be objective, go ahead, enjoy it.
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I think there is an age old nomadic life involving the sea coast, in any climate, people like to live near the sea. Living on the sea itself is something completely different. I am near the sea but in a boatyard and not on the sea. In Crisfield I am on the sea but in a marina, still not free of the land. In both cases I am cheating a bit and taking the easy way. If I put the catamaran in the water it will start to gather growth on the bottom starting an endless cycle of hauling out, bottom cleaning, relaunching, gather more weeds. SUNSPLASH in Crisfield has plenty of weeds growing on the bottom.
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Cap’n Webb Chiles postponed his voyage to Culebra until after the ceremony inducting him into the Moore 24 sailing hall of fame. It is probably better anyway with our temperatures in the low country 10 degrees below normal.
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In the boatyard we have ice in the bucket and ice on the swimming ladder that I use to climb on deck. Careful Cap’n, breaking ribs in cold weather is much more painful.
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A photo from a spy in Crisfield showed a wintry scene with ice on the docks. The weather app says storm conditions, such as 50mph winds and snow. The marina called to say SUNSPLASH is getting hammered against her finger pier. It has happened before, just more repair work next summer.
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I was surprised to see langostinos on sale at Walmart, of all places. These are the real “scampi” and I bought some. Quick sautee with butter and garlic, some parsley flakes, ought to be good. I also bought frozen small shrimp and spinach. I had some vague idea of making “shrimp noodle florentine”. I needed to put the frozen items in the little fridges tiny freezer. There was a ziplok bag of bean soup in there left over from? From Thanksgiving.
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I microwaved the bean soup to thaw it out and also get it bubbling hot. It didn’t smell off and it was actually as good as ever.
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I had some shrimp ramen packets on hand, so I put ½ pkg of ramen noodles in a large styrofoam cup with a teaspoon of Tony Chachere’s Creole Seasoning and some of the small shrimp. A pint of boiling water was added and the concoction was steeped for a few minutes and voila, gourmet college dorm shrimp soup.
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The cold weather put my propane heating apparatus in center focus. My recent propane tank replacement suddenly was empty. The heater is the Mr. Heater Buddy, I think it is called. It is old and has seen its days. Sometimes the pizzeo lighter doesn’t work and I have to use a match. There is a thermocouple that allows the propane to flow into the catalytic grille of heater when it gets up to temperature. It has been malfunctioning and taking much too long to get the heater heating. Finally it refused to stay lit and it took an hour to get it going. The pilot light would remain lit, but the grille wouldn’t start up. I started applying a spray of ethanol on the burner and the result would be an impressive flame but the grille would lose its glow. I began to bang on the heater which was already in pretty bad shape. Then it started working again. I will replace it if it continues to fail.
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Rain. Pouring rain. I was trying to sleep with a persistent leak in the hatch over my head, drip, drip, drip. No heat from the broken heater. I was sleeping in damp bunk with the temperature outside going down to freezing again.
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In the morning I didn’t want to emerge from the bunk and face the cold. The bucket on deck was frozen. My pyromaniacal session with the broken heater had me spraying ethanol on the heater and trying to light it. Flame. Heat, but just a little. Spray, light it, and after a long while it began burning properly.
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After breakfast we drove to Walmart and I bought a new heater. I did my research. The Mr. Heater “little buddy” that had failed was not available, they had been bought out, out of stock. They are cheap. The Mr. Heater Portable Buddy was available, listing about $75. Right next to it was Walmart’s Ozark Trail 10,000BTU portable camping heater for $59. I bought it.
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The Ozark Trail heater can be adjusted from 10K btu’s down to about 4K. The Little Buddy was rated at 3800 btu’s with no adjustment. The Ozark Trail will run for about 4 hours on a 1 lb propane cylinder. When I ran it at 10K it started to melt things around it and potentially damage painted surfaces. The heat was excessive at that setting. I guess I am set if we have truly cold weather. When it is turned down to its lowest setting it puts out plenty of heat and has a satisfying rumbling sound. I put the Little Buddy on the boatyard’s free pile.
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I made another pseudo shrimp noodle concoction with some Irish butter, minced garlic, ramen noodles, more of the tiny shrimp, and garlic salt and ground pepper to taste. Very simple and easy to make with precooked shrimp and boiling water. 3 minutes.
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I have been toying with the idea of a vacation to Hawaii during these cold months. The temperatures are running about 10 degrees below average here. Frost is an occasional thing here, but we have had several hard freezes and frost on the pumpkin almost every morning. Normally we expect “winter” to gradually give up by mid February. This year is already a little colder.
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I was in the store for wine and needed to pick up a couple other things. What could I make, bean soup? Yes, I drifted over to the 15 bean soup packages in the Kingsland Winn-Dixie. This store will be converted to an Aldi’s starting in a few months. The smaller store in St Marys is already closed and undergoing renovation. I notice some bare floor space here in the Kingsland store already. The seafood counter is bare and unoccupied. The bean prices are higher than those at Walmart. Onions are a dollar more than Walmart.
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I changed my mind about making the 15 bean soup, I would make bean soup with Great Northern Beans. I purchased a pair of bone-in pork chops and a pound of beans. I was forced to buy one of the expensive onions. Garlic was not available in single heads. I retreated to the boatyard and began cooking.
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I poached the pork chops, beans, brown rice, onion, and garlic, bring to a boil with 6 cups of water, turn off the heat for 10 minutes, repeat until the beans are starting to tender. That is the problem with the 15 bean mix, the beans are all different sizes and need different cooking times. When the beans are beginning to get tender I added a package of frozen spinach and a can of diced tomatoes. The pork chops had been removed and allowed to cool. A leftover flavor packet from a previous 15 bean mix was added.
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The pork chops were deboned and any fat was removed, then the pork was shredded and diced and returned to the pot. I cheated and tasted some of the pork. The soup was still poaching but I had some. Raw flavors, but the flavor packet said Cajun and the soup spoke to me – Cajun. I had a few helpings and then put the pot on deck. The temperature was going down to mid 30’s overnight, so the soup was going to get chilled and then packaged individual portions and refrigerated in the morning.
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In the morning I put away 4 large portions of the soup. I can’t wait to make it again, I have a couple of ideas for improvement.
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The roof racks came in for the CRV and I installed them. The image is of the roof racks.