Crock-Pot: Smoked Turkey Legs with Pinto Beans & Bacon Corn Bread

This is my re-do of a soul dish I once knew.  My dad's last wife (R.I.P.) was a great cook.  She was black and taught me soul food before I knew what that was.  Her fried chicken and sweet potato pie will be forever etched in my memory.  I never have had either since that compare to hers...She taught me how to make the chicken but I have never come close to recreating it.

She also made smoked ham hocks and pinto beans - a lot - with white rice.  She would simmer the beans/meat all day and it was just melt in your mouth good - cheap and good, and filling.  She taught me this dish too, but I have never made it, not that I recall, anyway.  In her memory, I decided to make this recipe, though tried to make it slightly healthier.  I thought I'd try a spin on hers in my crock-pot which rarely ever gets used...I am not a fan of the crock-pot so was unsure... I find that all flavor gets lost and muted in it and takes on a weird taste.  There are only a couple of things I will make in it (broth is one).  In the end, I thought I could jazz it up when it came out.  I just needed the crock-pot to make it tender and rich...

Then I was going to season/finish it with an extra step.  I had some chicken andouille sausage from Trader Joe's in the freezer, so I was going to fry this up and add it after it was all cooked for more flavor along with some bell peppers, garlic and jalapeno.

The hard thing was figuring out how much liquid to use...I didn't want it watery at all.  I almost thought abandoning the crock-pot all together, but decided to experiment...  For the crock-pot I used:

• One large onion, diced
• 1 sprig of fresh Rosemary (figured it couldn't hurt?)
• 1 teaspoon of crushed chili flakes
• 2 smoked turkey legs
• 1 tablespoon of dried granulated garlic (I have never liked fresh garlic results in a crock-pot)
• 3 cups dried pinto beans, rinsed and picked over
• 1 tetra pack (946 ml)of organic chicken stock (low sodium)
• 3 cups of organic low sodium veggie stock
• 2 tablespoons of Trader Joe's no salt "21 Seasoning Salute"
• Fresh cracked pepper

For the Finishing step, I used:

• 1 pack of 4, Andouille chicken sausage from Trader Joes, halved, sliced and fried
• 1 red bell pepper, diced, fried with the sausage
• 1 green bell pepper, diced, fried with the sausage
• 1 jalapeno pepper, diced with ribs and seeds, fried with the sausage
• 3 cloves of garlic, minced, fried with the sausage
• Frank's Red Hot sauce, to taste at end of cooking and for garnish
• Green onions, sliced thinly for garnish
• Fresh cracked pepper and kosher salt

I put the crock pot ingredients in.  I poured the broth over making sure everything was covered.  I did this the night before and left it in the fridge.  When I left for work, I put the crock-pot on low for 10 hours.

When I got home, it smelled so good in the house!  It looked good, it tasted better...except for the weird "crock pot" taste that I so dislike.  I took out the turkey legs and stripped the meat off the bones.

I put it all into a dutch oven.  I re-seasoned with some pepper and more TJ's 21 Salute and left it covered on a very low heat.

I got the bacon done next.

I was going to cook the cornbread in the drippings and in my cast iron skillet.  I used 1% fat buttermilk and added the rendered bacon.  I elected not to make rice and serve this instead as the side dish.

I chopped all the andouille, peppers and garlic next and sauteed them up in some of the bacon fat until browned.

Then I stirred it into the beans.

I let it simmer until the cornbread was ready.  (The cornbread was kind of an abomination - I discovered I only had a 1/2 cup of cornmeal as I was putting it together, so just threw something together and some dense floury bacon bread emerged instead.  Thank goodness for the bacon though - my son had 2 slices of it!).

The beans were so comforting and it was a really fine basic dish.  Very reminiscent of "rice and beans" I've had in New Orleans.  We enjoyed it immensely.  I was disappointed I couldn't make real Southern cornbread, but what it was served its purpose...