Bean Soup is Not an Adhesive Product

Update on Husband: As I write this, I am sitting in one of the infusion rooms at the Huntsman center while Husband has his third dose of chemotherapy. I should be writing 1000 words on local search marketing, but I ran out of things to say after 500 words and I'm taking a break.

So far, Husband has not been feeling any side-effects, which is very nice. His hair is still sitting proudly on his head, and he's feeling tired but not nauseated or in any other way ill. Yay!

.................

I have a lot of beans in my pantry. I must have around 30 bags of mostly white beans stacked on one of the shelves (on the right side). The other day, I figured I better make use of these little nutrient-packed power players, though my heart wasn't really in it. Two bags of beans went into the crock pot with water and a little baking soda to soak overnight. The next day, I drained and refreshed the water, threw in a ham bone and some seasonings, and set them to cook for 10 hours. That night, the scent of bean soup welcomed us as we walked through the door after spending many hours in The Big City. I can't say Husband was all that excited.

As an experiment, I pureed the beans in the blender and added the leftover, chopped ham I'd saved. Bean glue. With ham. But the kids LOVED it! My parents also loved it, as that is the kind of thing my mom cooked all the time I was growing up (I ate a very healthy diet until I went off to college and began enjoying the easy energy of sugary carbs. Protest and rebellion? Well, if it was, it was the worst act of rebellion I went through.) So this bean soup I was sure would sit quietly molding away in my fridge is almost gone. I made so much it's fed us for several nights. The baking soda in the soaking water cut down on the...um...embarrassing aspect associated with eating beans, and I sit in amazement as even the pickiest of my eaters chows it down.

I would feel like the absolute best cook in the world except Husband has taken a pass on it every time since he choked down the first bowl on the first night. He said (and I quote directly),"It's like taking baked beans, mashing them up into a mush, and leaving out all the good tasting parts of it." Since he bruises so easily these days, I have refrained from hitting him. Too hard. He got porridge with a little butter, brown sugar, milk, and raisins last night, and he liked that fine.