(Pinto) beans, beans, good for New Year's Eve!

It's traditional in the South to eat black-eyed peas on New Year's Eve for good luck. This year, I flaunted tradition by making a big pot of pinto beans.

I had a pretty good chunk of left-over Christmas spiral ham, with a sweet glaze, that needed to be either cooked or frozen. And since I didn't want it taking up space in my freezer, I cubed it and made a big pot o' pinto beans (I'm pretty sure black-eyed peas wouldn't taste too good after simmering in a pot with sweet-glazed meat):


What I did was this:

First, I soaked a pound of beans for about 8 hours. Then I cubed about a pound of leftover ham into half-inch cubes. I drained the soaking water from my beans and added the meat. I covered my beans 'n' meat with water, and I added, oh, about two tablespoons of salt and two tablespoons of fresh-ground black pepper. Then I let it simmer, simmer, simmer (apologies to Justin Wilson) for about 2 hours. Then I served:


What you see there is a bowl of pinto beans, served over cornbread and topped with chopped onions ... and a lot of Tabasco® sauce. 'Twas mighty good to eat, lemme tell you, especially since it was my last meal of 2008!