Chicken-Fried Rib Eye

Looks like I may finally have some decent shucky beans. I planted a second crop a while back, and they're starting to produce a little. It's funny, they seem to have grown much more slowly than the ones I planted in the summer, but they're disease-free and the bugs aren't hurting them much.

My dilemma now is deciding when to pick them. Here in Dade County, they grow a lot of pole beans, and they let them get very big before they pick them. But I have also heard people say you should get them before they reach full growth. Let's see if Google helps. Hmm...no, it does not.

The Foxfire Book of Appalachian Cookery says to get them when they begin to get "sort of full." Okay, that's what I'll do.

I'm not what's wrong with the first crop. I dried them, but they stayed green. Maybe my mistake was drying them in the shade.

If you haven't tried shucky beans, you have no excuse for failing to remedy the situation. Get yourself some youngish fresh green beans, break them, and put them on strings. Let them dry until they turn brown. The classic method is to put them on a window screen inside a car in the hot sun, but I hung mine from the handlebar of an exercise machine. When you get ready to cook them, soak them overnight and then throw the water out. Then cook them with salt pork until they're very tender, making sure you boil the water down until it's almost gone. Not rocket science.

Tonight on Nowlive: I cook chicken-fried rib eye on a giant biscuit, with cream gravy. Check it out, at 9 Eastern/6 Pacific.