Month: September 2017

Sausage and Hominy Stew

So, I haven’t cooked much lately. I started a new, part-time job in the marketing department at Lynchburg College, and I’ve been busier than usual. I also started playing tennis recently, which I love, so that’s kept me busy a couple of nights a week, too.

And I run, and I’m writing a book, and I’m still doing some freelance writing for some local magazines. And sometimes, I like to take naps. So, we’ve been eating out a lot more than usual, but this past Sunday I felt compelled to cook.

Even though it’s not officially fall yet and is expected to be in the 80s this week, likely with high humidity, I really wanted to make stew. I thought maybe we’d just turn the AC up while eating it or chase the stew with lots of Dos Equis (best idea).

For a good recipe, I turned to one of my favorite cookbooks, Tammy Algood’s “Southern Slow Cooker Bible.” I chose the sausage and hominy stew. I’ve made it before, but as usual I changed a couple of small things in the ingredients and the process.

For example, the recipe calls for two pounds of smoked sausage. Because smoked sausage came only in 13- or 14-oz. packages at my grocery store, I ended up with slightly less than two pounds. I also bought one chicken sausage and one pork sausage. At first, I thought that might be weird, but then I thought of Kentucky burgoo, which uses beef, pork and chicken.

I’m determined to make burgoo sometime this year, maybe for Christmas dinner. Every recipe I’ve seen makes a vat of it, so you can’t just make it for two people. That’s way too much burgoo, unless it freezes well, of course.

Another change I made to the sausage and hominy stew recipe was using chicken broth instead of vegetable broth. As a side note, I almost always type “brother” when typing “broth” and have to backspace twice. I have no idea why I do that. Maybe it’s the Universe saying I should call one of my brothers.

Anyway, I also used two cans of yellow hominy instead of one white and one yellow, like the recipe calls for. And I didn’t use the fresh cilantro, or any cilantro for that matter. Husband John isn’t crazy about cilantro — which I seem to want to spell “cilantry” today — so I almost never put it in recipes. It’s not a great sacrifice. I’m not nuts about it either.

I also boiled the potatoes in advance because last time I made this stew I had to cook it extra long to make the potatoes soften. Sometimes, potatoes act weird in the slow cooker.

sausage stew pic
Sausage and hominy stew 

So, here’s what I made, with the changes:

Sausage and Hominy Stew
(8 servings)

2 pounds smoked sausage, thickly sliced (whatever kind interests you or is on sale)
6 small, red potatoes, cubed and boiled (don’t peel)
About a cup of frozen, sliced carrots
3 ½ cups low-sodium chicken broth
2 (15-oz.) cans of yellow hominy (drained and rinsed)
1 (4.5-oz) can of chopped green chiles (whatever heat you like)
½ tsp. black pepper
½ tsp. ground cumin
½ tsp. dried oregano

Boil potatoes and then throw them and everything else on the list into the slow cooker. Mix ingredients together. Cover and cook for 6 hours on high.

Note: The original recipe said 8 hours on low and it also said to lightly grease the slow cooker, which I forgot to do. I’ve found that greasing the slow cooker is mostly about cleanup afterwards. I also decided to go with high heat this time because I wanted to eat this for dinner and didn’t get started until about 12:30 p.m.

Finding Foster

As many of you know, I’m currently researching a book about a man, William Macon Waller, who took about 20 of his slaves to Mississippi in 1847-48. His plan was to sell the slaves in Mississippi to cover debts he had at home in Amherst County, Va.

Part of my research has involved finding out what happened to the individual slaves. I haven’t had much luck yet. After all, the men Waller sold the people to were mostly large landholders with hundreds of slaves. Finding evidence of one, among all the others (some of which had the same names) is, not surprisingly, difficult.

So, I decided to focus on one for now: Foster.

On the off chance that someone else out there, possibly a descendant, also is looking for Foster, here’s what I know about him:

Foster was probably not an old man in 1847, when Waller and his slaves left Amherst, Va., bound for Mississippi, via the overland route through Virginia, Tennessee, Alabama and Mississippi. He had to be able to walk 25 miles a day.

So, I’m guessing he was born sometime between 1810 and 1830.

Also, when Foster was eventually sold, he sold for $1,200, two or three times more than anyone else sold by Waller on that trip. In fact, Waller took Foster to New Orleans, where he would bring a better price. So, it’s my assumption that Foster was a skilled worker of some kind, maybe a carpenter or something like that.

Waller and Foster left Vicksburg, Miss., on a steamship called the Mount Vernon sometime in the first week of January 1848. The ship took them down the Mississippi River to New Orleans. Waller left Foster in New Orleans, where he was sold, sometime around the first week of February.

And that’s all I know, except that it’s likely Foster was born in Virginia.

Maybe you’re looking for an ancestor, named Foster, who was black or mulatto, and a slave born in Virginia. While he was sold in New Orleans, based on shipping manifests that I’ve seen online, he could have ended up in Texas, Alabama, Mississippi, or some other slave state. And if he survived to Emancipation, he could have returned to Virginia or ended up someplace else.

If this rings a bell with anyone out there in Cyberspace, please let me know. I’d like to know more about your ancestor and talk to you, too.

Thanks!