Wonderful, hardy succotash.
- 1 tablespoon smoked paprika
- 2 tablespoons dried basil
- 1 tablespoon coconut oil
- 1 medium onion chopped
- 1 medium green pepper chopped
- 1 tablespoon chili powder
- 1 can (28 ounces) diced tomatoes undrained
- 1 pkg sliced mushrooms (i marinate in soy sauce, lemon, garlic, stevia combo)
- 3 cups fresh lima beans (1 pkg cooked) (may use canned or frozen)
- 2 tablespoons no chicken-chicken bullion
- 4 cups water or 4 cups of veggie broth/no chicken broth in place of water and bullion
- 1 package (10 ounces) frozen peas thawed or 1 can (15-1/2 ounces) black-eyed peas, drained
- 1 package (10 ounces) frozen corn thawed
- 1-1/2 teaspoons salt (divided)
- 2 tablespoon rubbed sage
- 1-1/2 teaspoon pepper (divided)
- Carbohydrate 4.848340001387 g
- Cholesterol 0 mg
- Fat 1.42423975027671 g
- Fiber 1.56949168462505 g
- Protein 0.905143500340095 g
- Saturated Fat 1.04673743337688 g
- Serving Size 1 1 Serving (167g)
- Sodium 102.034141676601 mg
- Sugar 3.27884831676195 g
- Trans Fat 0.12612342504009 g
- Calories 31 calories
Step-by-step
- If using fresh lima beans, soak the night before.
- Drain and place beans in crock pot along with water and bullion or broth.
- Cook on high for 4 hours.
- You may prepare a marinade for the mushrooms by combining 1/2 cup soy sauce, 1/4 cup lemon juice, 1/4 cup stevia, and 1 tbsp garlic powder in a zip top bag along with mushrooms and marinate while beans are cooking.
- When beans are done, drain broth and reserve for other use in other dishes and put lima beans back in crock pot along with tomatoes, mushrooms (drained if you marinated) and peas.
- Turn crock on high while preparing the following ingredients.
- Sauté onions and peppers in coconut oil until onions release their liquid.
- Immediately dump corn in pan and fry corn along with 1/2 tsp salt, 1/2 tsp pepper and the chili powder.
- Sauté until peppers are soft.
- Dump into crock pot and add all of the remaining spices and herbs.
- Stir and cook on low for at least an hour to allow spices to blend.
Replacing fresh lima beans with canned varieties eliminates the mandatory eight-hour soaking window, yet it fundamentally alters the final starch absorption rate. Dried legumes demand pre-cooking in liquid to soften structurally before acidic tomatoes enter the vessel; introducing canned beans requires reducing the initial slow-cooker liquid by half to prevent a watery emulsion. Testing reveals that skipping the preliminary bean boil leaves the center of large limas chalky despite hours of residual heat.
Managing Starch and Moisture in the Slow Cooker
Excess moisture ruins vegetable medleys by dissolving the surface starches released from corn and peas into a thin soup rather than a cohesive stew. Sautéing the onions and peppers separately in coconut oil drives off surface cellular water before those aromatics join the crock. Adding frozen corn directly to the hot skillet with chili powder toasts the natural sugars briefly, imparting depth that damp simmering cannot achieve. Mushrooms marinated in soy sauce and lemon juice must undergo a thorough drain step; excess liquid introduces unwanted sodium and darkens the bright green vegetables during the final hour of low-temperature blending.Freezing and Reheating Mechanics
Freezing cooked succotash requires attention to starch retrogradation, which causes thawed starches to release trapped water and separate. Storing the finished dish in airtight glass containers for up to three months remains viable if cooling occurs within two hours of powering down the appliance. Reheating demands gentle stove-top application over medium-low heat rather than aggressive microwave blasts, which rupture the delicate skins of the corn kernels and turn the lima beans mealy. Stirning periodically during reheating distributes the remaining fat emulsion evenly across the heterogeneous mixture.
