Mr. Hawthorne Cooks Lunch. Sthufferin' Sthuccotash!

I love to pair a meal with the weather or season. For example, a nice hearty stew when the weather snaps in the fall and leaves are swirling. Perhaps a hot chili or a lamb cassoulet in winter when the snow is falling. In spring, I love a Caesar salad of Romaine just picked from my garden, washed, and chilled. I love a salad of fresh mixed greens and spinach adorned with a light vinaigrette. A stir fry of just-picked radishes and snowpeas. In the summertime, I love slicing my first tomatoes of the season and adding sliced red onion, sliced cucumber, freshly ground salt and pepper, and a heaping of chopped basil with a sprinkling of sugar and a splash of cider vinegar and salt and pepper. That's just a great big whopping bite o' summer in my mouth. Fast forward to today. For the past two weeks, it's been unbearably hot. Temperatures consistently in the nineties. Yesterday afternoon, finally, clouds rolled in and we had a long, beautiful, gentle to medium-hard soak for most of the evening. The temperature dropped to the eighties. This morning I woke up to an overcast sky, the clouds promising more rain for today. Mr. Hawthorne made lunch today. It was excellent in and of itself, but more so, it perfectly fit the weather.

He made his very own succotash, served with Tostitos Chips and my homemade salsa. For those of you who don't know, succotash comes from the Narragansett msíckquatash, meaning boiled corn kernels. The Narragansett tribe is an Algonquian Native American tribe from Rhode Island.

Traditionally, succotash is a dish consisting primarily of corn and lima beans or other shell beans. Other ingredients may be added including tomatoes and peppers.

Mr. Hawthorne's Succotash: 1/2 cup dried black eyed peas, cooked in salted water until almost done, but not quite (35-45 minutes) 2/3 cup frozen baby lima beans, added to the pot so they finish up at the same time as the black-eyed peas (15-20 minutes) Pour off liquid. Add in: can of petite diced tomatoes, can of drained, whole kernel corn, 1 fresh tomato, peeled, chopped, and seeded. Add in a cup of leftover Sloppy Joe meat mixture. (Cooked lean ground beef, chopped bell peppers, onions, salt and pepper, some ketchup and Texas Pete.) If you had leftover Burrito Mixture, which I happen to keep on hand since I fix these boys so many burritos, you could use that. (Cooked ground beef, onions, peppers, s & p, soy sauce, Lea & Perrins, cumin, granulated garlic.) Or you don't need to add any beef mixture at all. This bean dish stands perfectly fine on its own. 1 teaspoon cayenne pepper Heat through. Serve with Tostitos Scoops and homemade salsa. My homemade salsa. That little green fresh seed on the right on the arm of the tomato is a fresh green coriander seed from one my cilantro plants. It's lovely. Very cilantro-ey and very citrus-ey. And very yumm-ey.

Oh ... this was sooooo good. If you wanted to make this in mere minutes, you could use canned black eyed peas and lima beans, but as you know, Rosie is not a fan of can. However, if by using cans it gets you in the kitchen to prepare this, then by all means, use the damn cans. Just promise me you'll rinse the beans until all slime is removed. Thank you. And bon appetit!