I made the mistake of trying this again, and it's the last time I ever try to cook beans that aren't from a can. I'm too old to spend large portions of the life that I have left waiting for beans to cook. They've been cooking since shortly after I got up today, and they're still not done. Never again.
I had a bean adventure today that reminded me of this thread. (Yes, I actually recalled a thread from 2019.) I soaked some red beans to make red beans and rice with andouille sausage for dinner. Placed them in the Instant Pot with chopped onions, celery, and garlic, covered with water, pressure cooked for 25 minutes and let the steam drop naturally which added another 20 minutes to cook time. Opened the pot to taste and the beans were STILL HARD WHAAAAAT?? So I closed the IP and set it to cook for an additional 25 minutes. This time the beans were soft but that has never happened before. Cool story, bro. Now I need to try Ken's recipe but 12 carrots??? That's a lotta carrots.
The first time I had even heard of andouille sausage was when we stopped at a restaurant in Louisiana and they brought us each one on the house, and they were great. However, the ones that I buy in the store here are not as good. They're okay, but not great. You should try the canned ones. Way easier. I am not ordinarily a big fan of carrots, but they were okay in this. Bear in mind, though, that this recipe was for from 12-14 people. You might cut back on that a bit. I don't think I cut back on the meat part much, though.
I'm still trying to use up the stuff from The Great Food Hoard of 2021. Still a lotta dry beans in that closet. I like carrots, but usually a soup recipe has like 3 carrots in it, not 12. (Unless it's carrot soup.) I just noticed that your original recipe was to feed an army, but the ratio of ham hocks to carrots seems skewed. Maybe Brunner will weigh in on this controversial topic.
I like ham hocks. I'll make them in soup as you did, but if I want them as a main course, I've always pressure cooked them with potatoes. I keep smoked neck bones in the freeze to throw in soups as a flavoring. A soup diet makes perfect sense. It's recommended to drink a lot of water before a meal because the liquid will fill you up, so I can see the broth as being filling yet not caloric-dense. And most of the vitamins & minerals are captured in the broth.
When I was the steward (chef) on an off shore oil rig, we had a toolpusher who would come on board with 14 smoked ham hocks and a case of quart size cartons of buttermilk. He would eat breakfast and lunch off of the buffet line but for dinner he wanted 2 steamed ham hocks, buttermilk and corn bread. It wasn’t much of a burden and in order to stay on the good side of a seasoned toolpusher I was more than happy to accommodate the guy.
They were already smoked so all it took was a few minutes to get them hot and actually, the steam replaced a little moisture in the hock. Either way, the toolpusher on a rig is always right. Heck, I had one pusher who would shut down the rig for an hour on Saturday just so he could watch the Smurfs.
Since we have another hurricane coming our way here in Central Florida, maybe today would be a good day to fix some of the dried beans I have in the pantry. I do that "quick soak" method, which takes ~1 hour, then plan on them cooking for at least a couple of hours more. Classic comfort food from my youth.
Sounds like you missed a good soaking before you cooked them. I live on Butter Beans and Field Peas and Baby Lima s. I've been on a Rice kick for a couple months and plan on buying another Rice cooker soon. My favorite meat is smoked sausages for the Beans. I rushed my shopping and forgot to get a couple cans of chili for this week. By weekend we will have wind and mid 30s with some rain as the front moves over us and down into the Gulf. Maybe that will be a good reminder for me not to forget the chili again. I miss living in Nevada where Prime Rib is one of the great bargains at all the casinos. In Pahrump it was the Golden Nugget that was my favorite feed bag and it was Christmas every time I went to dinner during the week.