Paula Deening My Brains Out!

Cooking with Rachael Ray

The Spiced Beef With Dumplin's turned out fabulously, thank you. I always cook roasts on high in the crock pot all day. That makes them fork tender and this turned out the same. I used refrigerater biscuits, as the recipe called for, to make the dumplings and everyone liked them - even those of us who don't usually care for dumplings.

Today I'm making Senate Bean Soup, also from The Lady and Sons Too! cookbook. I used canned navy beans, I really hate working with uncooked beans of any kind. It usually takes me two days to get them soft enough to use, so prefer to start with canned beans. I used pork neck bones, rather than smoked ham hocks, since that was all Wal-Mart had along those lines. I've been noticing something interesting - chefs like Rachael Ray and Paula Deen are very specific about when to add salt to a dish. Rachael Ray always warns not to add it to a water pot until the water is already boiling. In this current recipe, Paula instructs you not to salt and pepper the soup until just before serving. I may not salt it at all, since I'm sure sodium was used to can the beans. I'm serving it with "Corn Casserole", also from the same cookbook. This is a recipe I found online and made and recommended to Di without knowing it came from Paula Deen. You throw together a can of corn, a can of creamed corn, a box of Jiffy corn muffin mix, a cup of sour cream and a half a stick of butter. You bake it in a casserole dish and it's moist and wonderful. I thought it would be fun to jazz this dish up some time with mexican corn or chilis, but am making it as directed tonight. I think I'll also make a wonderful salad. Perhaps the Warm Apple and Goat Cheese Salad from that book.