Pinto Beans

I love pinto beans. They are one of the staples of my diet. I eat them about once a month with rice.

This is my recipe:

Pinto Beans

Ingredients:

1 pound dry pinto beans
6 cups water

Directions:

1. Place the pinto beans into a large container and cover with several inches of cool water; let stand 8 hours to overnight. Or, bring the beans and water to a boil in a large pot over high heat. Once boiling, turn off the heat, cover, and let stand 1 hour. Drain and rinse before using.

2. Put the drained beans in a pot and add water to just cover the beans. Bring to a boil over high heat; reduce heat to medium-low, cover, and simmer 1 hour. Make sure that the water level continues to cover the beans as they cook; use more water as needed. Continue simmering until the beans are tender, about 90 minutes more. Could be longer or shorter depending on the stove heat. Could take 8 to 12 hours in a slow cooker.

If you have ham hocks, smoked neck bones. bacos, bacon, ground hamburger, ground sausage, chopped ham, chopped pork, chopped meat of any kind including squirrel or oppossum or tofu or sparrows or robins chop it up and then cook it up and add it to the beans when you start cooking them.

Leftover chicken, meat loaf, hamburgers, just about any kind of meat or meat substitute can be tossed into beans. Leftover KFC, pull the chicken off the bones, chop it up and toss it in the beans. Cold cuts or hot dogs can be chopped up and added too. Bologna for example (although I don't much like bologna in my beans).

If you have onions, cellery, green pepper or any other vegtables add them when you start cooking the beans if you want them to turn into mush. If you want the vegetables firm put them in during the last half hour to hour of cooking.

If you have some spices like garlic, pepper, oregano or what ever put some in while cooking to your taste. Fresh is great, but, the stuff you shake out of the bottles from the store is fine too. If you are going to use inner tree bark stay away from evergreens and birch. Maple is okay. I don't much like poplar either, but, to each their own.

If you have some chicken or beef or soup stock replace some or all of the water with the stock.

When the beans are tender cook up some rice. Put the rice in a bowl. Put the beans over the rice. Add hot sauce or spices to taste. Eat.

When I was dead broke I lived on pinto beans and rice. Ate it just about every meal. Cheap and nourishing. I have tried cooking it just about every way I could and I have tried spicing it up with everything from grass to steak.