Ham hocks and beans

Ham hocks and beans, originally uploaded by Lisa Fagg.

Okay! Last post of a heavy day of blogging and Twittering and all that...
In amongst all the internet activity, I managed to cook dinner for us. This was thanks, in no small part, to the pressure cooker (once again):

Because I've recently been so distracted and doing too much at once, I hadn't soaked the red kidney beans beforehand, so I cooked them in the pressure cooker with an onion and six peppercorns before I started cooking the ham.

Once they'd cooked for 10 minutes, I let them cool at their own pace until the pressure dropped and I could remove the lid.

Then I added the ham and some bay leaves and 4 cloves of garlic. I let them cook (with slow rocking of the weight on my cooker) for 15 minutes and let them cool. This turned out to be insufficient time for the meat to be 'falling off the bone" so I put the pot back on the heat and let it cook an additional 10 minutes. That seemed to do it.

I served this with rice and Romanesco cauliflower (from the vegetable box!) and my "must have " side salad/salsa of chopped tomatoes and red onion mixed with olive oil, vinegar and salt.

Scrummy!

Have some.