Smokey Bones & 15 Beans

Beans, beans, I love beans. My favorites are pinto, & small red beans. My wife doesn’t like beans too well unless in chili or some of the soups I have made. I don’t make a large batch very often, a pound of beans will feed many! Awhile back I did a fresh pork picnic shoulder & saved the bones & some of the meat to use in beans. Had a nice day so decided to do some beans. I bought a lb. bag of Hursts, 15 beans, with Cajun flavor pack. They also have some with just a Ham flavor pack. I followed the recipe on the bag pretty close. I have done them before & always turns out good. I got my bag of bones & meat from the freezer to thaw & 2 quarts of water on the beans to soak over night. I thought they could use more meat than I had saved so bought a hank of smoked sausage from my butcher & used about 2/3rds of it after smoking some more.
My idea was if I smoked the bones they would help impart more smoke flavor to the beans, so got the bones, pulled pork, & sausage on my Traeger. Set it on the smoke mode it ran at about 180 deg. average. I had sprinkled some of Penzey’s Cajun seasoning on the pork & bones. After 1 ½ hrs. I pulled the sausage & pork & did the bones another half hour. I put the bones, 1 Vidalia onion, salt & a handful of little carrots in a large pot with 2 quarts of water. Brought it to a boil then simmered for an hour. Removed the bones, onion & carrots, discarded. At this point you could stain the broth but mine didn’t need it. I added the lb. of beans & simmered for 2 hrs. stirring occasionally. Sliced up the sausage & chopped the pork, chopped a med. Vidalia onion, & added to the pot. Another 15 min. I added a can of Rotel tomatoes & the juice of one lemon. Then added about half the Cajun flavor pack & tasted, added a little more of the flavor pack. I let all this simmer about another half hr. & set down to a large bowl of sausage, pork, & beans. It was delicious but my wife chose to eat some left over pizza she had! Did smoking the bones help, I think so & besides it was fun doing! Note in the simmering pot, there are eyes on top. A cousin said his Dad always said soup is no good unless it has eyes on top, a little fat. Would have been better with some good crusty bread but forgot to get any so I had crackers with it.

Some of the fixins

On the smoker

Smokey Bones

Simmering Pot

My Bowl of Beans

Smokin Don