13 Bean Soup

Yes, today is the 12th, and I could have saved this for tomorrow, but I didn’t. 

Friday, Honey and I went down to the Houston Farmer’s Market to shop at Canino Produce, a place I hadn’t been in at least 30 years. 

I figured that the cost of the 40-mile trip could be assigned to entertainment expense since it got us out of the house for half a day. As it turned out, we actually saved enough money to justify almost all of it. 

Canino’s is still busy as ever, and just getting parked without getting run over is an adventure.  We used the outside entrance, and never went past the guard gate into the Farmer’s Market itself.

We got six large paper grocery bags full of food – remember paper grocery sacks?  I hadn’t seen one in years – for less than $75.00. 

Have you noticed how often commercials and news reports use “less than” or “more than” instead of just naming an amount?  “More than 13 injured in crash.” ~“Buy the H-E-B Combo Loco and get more than five items free” ~ Can you say 14? How hard is it to say six? Why is six less attractive or less dramatic than more than five?

Anyway, we bought a dozen eggs, some  hot sauce, a jar of chow-chow and a liter of  extra-virgin olive oil; everything else in our full grocery cart was fresh produce or dried beans.  We got kidney beans and limas, black-eyed peas and pinto beans. 

We also got some of Canino’s Famous 13 Bean Soup Mix.  I say it’s famous because they say so; I personally had never heard of it before – but, if it isn’t famous already, it should be.  That stuff is GREAT!

Obviously, we had never cooked 13 Bean Soup before, but there are recipes in the bag and on Canino’s website.  They’re not identical, but they’re close. I think Honey used parts of each one, and tweaked the spices just a bit.

Yesterday morning, I had to make another trip to the store for sausage – we used Jimmy Dean Hot – and it was definitely worth the trip.  Other recipes on-line say you can substitute ham hocks or salt pork for the sausage and that would probably be OK. You could probably use hamburger, or just keep it strictly vegetarian.

We had been smelling (and “testing”) the soup all day so dinner came early yesterday.  About 4:00 p.m., I cooked a pan of cornbread, we grabbed a couple of green onions, and we both ate way more 13-Bean Soup than we should have.

There are dozens of recipes on-line for 13 Bean Soup and at least one recipe says that  it is a Southern tradition. Without getting into whether Texas is “Southern” or not, I can’t believe I’ve lived this long without even knowing about it.  I also found recipes for 15 and 16 Bean Soups and learned yesterday on my sausage run that Wal-Mart stocks a 15 Bean soup mix.  I can’t imagine that any of them would top the soup Honey made yesterday.

Even after gorging ourselves on this wonderful ambrosia, we were able to put a gallon and a half in freezer bags for use later.  We ball-parked the cost, and it looks like we enjoyed an outstanding meal for less than $1.50 apiece.