BRUNSWICK STEW (PORK STEW, SOUTHERN STYLE)

Steps:

• In a cold stew pot, place your tomato sauce, finely diced canned tomatoes, pork and minced onion and garlic.
• Mash your canned beans (throw out the hunk of pork fat that comes in the can).
• Add the mashed beans to your pot.
• Put the ground pork into the pot, and mash with a fork until everything in the pot is well-mixed and looks 'pureed'.
• Turn on your flame and use a wooden spoon to keep stirring this mixture until the color of the meat changes and it is cooked through.
• (I think I probably cook it this way on the stove top for about 15-20 minutes on medium high heat, stirring so nothing burns onto the bottom.) At this point I transfer the whole lot to my crock pot, but you can continue on with just the stew pot on the stove top.
• Add your spices, cumin, hot pepper flakes, salt, pepper, oregano, and beef bouillon.
• Taste it to see if you have everything in in the proportions you like.
• (I usually end up adding a lil' bit more of each spice to suit our tastes).
• Allow it to simmer a bit, so the spices meld together nicely.
• Give it another taste, add any spices you see fit to suit your tastes.
• I generally add the corn now (We prefer our corn cut off the cob in smaller pieces than whole kernels). Add the vinegar and Worcestershire sauce.
• Be sure to taste-test to see if you need to add more or not.
• Simmer until you are ready to serve.
• If your pork was cooked in the step 5 as instructed, you really just need to add the corn, vinegar and Worcestershire and heat it through.
• But I find it's easy to leave this in a crock-pot to keep it hot.
• When serving, pour some Frank's Red Hot sauce on your own bowl of the stew, (this way you can gauge the heat for each individual eating the stew.) (Optional: You can cook 1-2 chicken breasts in water until they will flake apart -- cut them finely, flake them so they aren't in chunks, and add to your stew).