Succotash recipe

This succotash recipe is just corn and beans but with a difference.

I am sure you too have odd strange memories from you childhood that spring uninvited into the conscious brain periodically. I had one this week; creamed corn succotash.

I even remember the name, though it must be fully fifty-plus years since my father's Suffering Succotash last passed through my lips. Such was the power of it.

This page was last updated by Bernard Preston on 27th January, 2024.

The common South African lima-bean is perfectly horrid; hard, starchy and tasteless. It's white with pink stripes; whilst I love legumes, from childhood I could not stomach these ones.

Then Papa when I was about ten years old, went to visit his father in Pine Beach, New Jersey. And came back with a highly contraband packet of lima seeds. Little pale yellowy-green beans, I still remember them like it was yesterday. We still grow them annually.

Into the garden they went, along with a couple rows of Hickory-King, our favourite corn. Three months later, aged only ten, I had my first creamed succotash. I still remember it like it was yesterday.

I suppose we enjoyed it a few times and then pah, no more. Papa cuckolded another man's wife and that was that; and end to our succotash recipes. A few other things changed too.

Sufferin' Succotash

The succotash recipes that my father initially made from the pink variety were absolutely ghastly.

And then the smuggled-in green American lima bean seeds, enjoyed fresh from the garden together with our own corn; now that was good.

Oh one other thing is memorable! I was made to sit on the verandah with a bowl of pods and compelled to open them. Now that wasn't fun but in retrospect, since I love tasty food it was worth the effort. Quality meals usually requires some effort. It was only many years later that the good-wife and I devised an easy way to shell large green beans.

I am sorry but from the can they are very second-rate; those who love good food will hunt at the farmers' market or grow them in the garden.

Succotash recipe

Succotash recipe is a wonderful nutritious way to boost your vegetable-protein with low GI ingredients. It's not fattening; it is the refined carbs that add unwanted inches to the waistline.

Nevertheless if you need to get a lot of pounds off, even the good starches have to be strictly limited for a few months; then you go to the edge of what is known as ketosis and your weight will drop very quickly.

• Ketogenic diets
  

Growing lima beans

Growing lima beans will test your patience; it's a long season but is otherwise without many difficulties. Get them from a can if you are desperate; they are an essential ingredient of your succotash recipe.

By whatever means, shell your lima. It's usually easiest for two people to make succotash recipes together. One cuts off the thin edge of the pod with scissors or a sharp knife whilst the other pops the beans out.

Better still call the grand-kids. We had a lovely time together. I cracked the shell and they went eagerly hunting for the beans.

Pour a cup of hot water into a pot and bring it again to the boil. Add the beans, set the lid in placer and bring it to temperature.

If necessary add some boiling water so the beans are just about covered.

Leave the lid off for a few minutes so that some of the water can boil off and then replace it and simmer until tender; about  ten to fifteen minutes depending on how old the beans are. When cooked, drain the limas keeping the water for the corn; or mealies as we call them in South Africa.

How to grow corn

How to grow corn also needs a large garden; it's for those only who are very fortunate. Actually it is more about the choices we make.

These beauties are three-months old and as you see we are about to enjoy our first succotash recipe.

Easy succotash

Succotash recipe is a wonderfully healthy way to boost your vegetable protein with low GI ingredients. It is one of the truly traditional wholegrain foods; they are so difficult to get.

• RADISH NUTRITION ...

Energy conscious?

If you're energy conscious, and you want to make an easy succotash recipe, then

• Drop the shelled lima beans into boiling water.
• Simmer for a few minutes.
• Drop the ear of corn into the pot.
• Bring back to the boil for another five minutes.
• Cool the cob and slice off the kernels.
• Meantime, in another pot add a goodly chunk of butter, on low heat drop in the jalapeno, garlic and cooked lima beans.
• Add the mealie kernels and simmer gently for a few minutes, adding salt and pepper to taste.
  
• Enjoy; add a couple tablespoons of cream if your cholesterol is in order.
  

Actually, if you're eating foods like this, and following the dictates of exercise and cholesterol, you need have no fears of that bogey.

We use an induction stove because it's twice as fast as gas, and uses half the electricity of a conventional element.

Every family should have an induction cooktop stove. It's part of our Cyan Zone philosophy.

Glycemic index

Both corn and lima beans have a low glycemic index cooked in this way. Although they are fairly high in starch, the sugars are slowly released into the blood stream without producing an insulin rush. Nevertheless those who are carrying too many pounds must limit the "load;" small portions.

What helps in particular is the protein in the beans; that keeps the total GI low.

If you are seriously overweight then this dish is not for you. The best way to lose pounds is to cut out most the starch in your diet altogether for a few months.

• GLYCEMIC INDEX and Carbohydrate Count Chart
  

Nevertheless despite Bernard Preston's protestations that this succotash recipe is made solely from low GI complex carbohydrate, all of the ketogenic diets would frown on this nutritious food. It certainly has not affected my cholesterol, blood pressure or HbA1c, the measure of insulin intolerance.

It's chocolate cake that makes us obese and turns us into diabetics.

Honest injun

I got this recipe from my New Jersey cousin; for me it's still untried. I have such good memories but fifty years is a long time. She sent some green lima bean seeds in the post and they are already about 3" high. It is a little late in the summer but I am keeping my fingers crossed.

We'll be posting photos as they progress. Meantime, the mealies as we call them are in full flower. Corn on the cob is one of my favourites. From the can it is high GI but straight from the garden it is very good food. I have put up a scarecrow and so far the vervet monkeys are staying well away.

Here's an update. Well here they are, and what an enormous crop we have had. The only problem is that vervets raid regularly and stole all our sweetcorn. So just plain lima beans, very delicious straight from the garden and disgustingly good.

See at the bottom of the page for the link to growing lima beans.

Here is a second update. This year I bought a paintball gun. I only hit one big male, and now they stay away. This year we have had wonderful sufferin' succotash.

Green bean succotash recipe

"Eat food. Not too much. Mostly plants."

- Michael Pollan

This one's tried and tested, and much loved. Green pole beans instead of limas.

GREEN BEAN SUCCOTASH RECIPES are an alternative.

Which ever way you do it, wellness is about more legumes for protein; meat is good when reared on grass in my opinion but we omnivores eat too much of it at our peril; or if it's corn-fed.

Grandma would certainly know about succotash recipes; they were probably daily on the menu in late summer when the corn was ripening and the lima bean pods were bulging with nutritious protein, to go with the carbs. Add butter or cream and you have a complete dish.

There is great concern about cholesterol these days, and rightly so. But those who enjoy their organic green foods daily, sufferin' succotash in season, with butter or cream, need have no fear of the dreaded cholesterol lurgy.

And in fact your homocysteine levels are far more important than cholesterol. Read the H factor. And that's dependent on plenty of greens and eggs for B12.

You don't have disgustingly low cholesterol?

Really it is not so difficult. Start with my wife Helen's salad every day, and making your own hummus. It's easy. Add a bowl of oats, with raisins or prunes for breakfast, and an apple a day, and hey presto, I can give you a reasonable assurance your cholesterol will start to behave. FOODS THAT LOWER CHOLESTEROL ...

• HELENS 15 EURO SALAD ... 
• AUTHENTIC HUMMUS RECIPE ...
  

Now doesn't that sound more sensible than taking statins. Apart from aching legs, this is one of the known side effects... an awful affliction for any man; and his wife!

Creamed corn succotash

"Don't eat anything your great-grandmother wouldn't recognise as food."

- Michael Pollan

We've had a poor crop this year; a combination of a severe drought, with late planting, and low summer temperatures has meant they haven't done well; alas the creamed corn succotash recipe will have to wait for next year.

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Incidentally, the carotenes in corn and beans are better absorbed if there's also fat in the dish. So either add butter later, or cream it.

A more healthy way would be to add an avocado dish like guacamole on the side; delicious with succotash.

The year is 2016 and we have a perfect crop of corn and lima beans. Soon we'll have some photos of our succotash recipe for you.

Nutritious choice foods

Nutritious choice foods give you an even chance of reaching old age with your marbles and even joints intact. Add to that exercise for the body, stimulation of the brain and a zestful ninety is not entirely out of the question; corn and beans like this succotash recipe is part of the deal. 

Corn and beans are rich in lutein and zeaxanthin, two phytochemicals that help prevent macular degeneration; and in the carotenes, the precursors of vitamin A.

Young, freshly-harvested corn and beans both have a place in our top 7 functional foods.

Useful links @ succotash recipe

Bernard Preston

Bernard Preston is a semiretired DC who doesn't like pain, or taking drugs; and is prepared to make the changes to ensure that.

That means plenty of exercise, spinal adjustments for aching joints and nutritious choice foods; oh, and taking the time to make succotash recipe and contemplate the meaning of life.

We are Christians and worship in two venues. One is the little Anglican church around the corner; the other is the Garden Cathedral where Adam first fellowshipped with God.

• Our Green Garden
  

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