Dear Reader,
Memorial Day weekend is here, and normally our family is having a picnic at my house. But we're still playing it safe and staying in quarantine. So this year's traditional picnic will be a traveling dish picnic instead. I'm making my family favorite Skunk Beans recipe, putting on my mask, setting a covered dish of Skunk Beans on my son, daughter-in-law and grandkids front porch, ringing the bell and heading back out to my car. When my family comes out, I'll give a wave, a big "I love you!" and on to the next porch.
The recipe is easy to make, a guaranteed winner and it keeps in the refrigerator for one week--not that there's usually any leftovers.
If you've never read the story behind my Skunk Bean recipe, here you go. Enjoy!
For forty years Skunk Beans has been one of my go-to recipes, but I never knew the story behind the beans until I was looking through some old recipes I'd found in my mother's kitchen cupboard after she passed away. When I found the recipe on an old folded piece of paper and read the heading, "Beans for Skunk Party" instantly I started smiling because I realized how the Skunk Beans got their name.
Almost every other Sunday evening the Tindell clan (including my dad, his four sisters, and grandma and grandpa Tindell), got together to play some serious Euchre. The kitchen in Grandma's house was so small that when the table was pulled open to seat everyone, you could barely walk around it. But that didn't matter. Get out the blue and red chips, which represented pennies--but it wasn't about the money--it was all about winning the game and trying to "skunk" your opponents in the process.
Euchre isn't a complicated game, but until you've played awhile, the table talk can sound like a foreign language. "Fishing out, dead-set legend, the ribbit, farm hand or no ace/no face, follow suit, trump, and skunked--which means that you and your partner lost the game without scoring one single point. Rumor has it that in some Euchre circles a team that gets skunked, also gets a "bum run." (If you and your partner get skunked you must run around a predetermined route--naked!)
I was an only child who sat by herself in the living room watching The Wonderful World of Disney (because none of my dad's sisters brought their children along), and there was a wall between the kitchen and me, so as far as I know none of my relatives ever did a bum run. Instead, whoever got skunked had to bring the Skunk Beans to the next Sunday evening Euchre party and I remember my mother bringing them almost every week!.
SKUNK BEANS
8 bacon strips - very crisp
1 onion, chopped & sauteed
1/2 cup vinegar
1 cup brown sugar
1/4 teaspoon dry mustard Dash garlic salt
1/2 cup ketchup
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 can kidney beans (drained)
1 can lima beans (drained)
1 #2 can pork and beans (drained) (#2 can = 20 oz can or 2 1/2 cups)
Cover and bake at 350 degrees for one hour. Uncover and bake for another 1/2 hour.
Thanks for reading with me. It's so good to read with friends.
Suzanne Beecher
Suzanne@DearReader.com
* This month's Penguin Classics book is BLACK SHACK ALLEY, by Joseph Zobel. I have a copy of the book to share with a lucky reader, so start reading and enter for your chance to win.
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