I began my foray into taming my wild garden right after the roundup. The focus on that was all consuming but I was going to get it conquered this year. I'd imagine anyone who has pulled weeds from sunup to sundown knows just how mind numbingly tedious it can be and how one's mind can wander off. During one of those long mornings a scene from Alice in Wonderland entered my musings. The one where Mad Hatter tells Alice, "You used to be much more muchier. You've lost your muchness." I suppose I was wondering if anyone had wondered if I had lost some of my muchness due to my absence this summer. The answer is no, mine is still quite intact. However, I did have plenty of time to question the muchness of several others. Some of whom I found sadly lacking. I do wonder if they really had any at all?
This was the end result and where my fingers have been from June until now instead of on a keyboard. So where is the roundup blog? Coming. But a hill of beans sort of made their way to the front of the line.
So I didn't really have a hill of beans but a 20 lb bag of fresh dried pinto bags. I received this really cool gift of food because my son visited Addie in Colorado earlier this summer. I sent her and her in-laws what I hoped were thoughtful gift baskets for putting up with my son for a week. Addie's basket was a silly assortment of candy, jerky, Campbell's soup and one of those sleep masks you can chill. I called it my new parent care package since her baby was due any day at that time. The in-laws had never been to MO so I sent a BBQ basket filled with rubs, sauces and one of our favorite smoker recipes.
During that week Addie and I chatted back and forth. One day she asked if I knew what to do with pinto beans. I thought she wanted a recipe but their little town has a bean packing plant and her DH got a bag to send back with Ryan. Awesome! Oh yeah, I had recipes.
This one is from Steven Raichlen
http://www.primalgrill.org/recipe_details.asp?RecipeID=18&EpisodeID=4 My DH bought a new smoker this year and he was just dying to use it. He'd seen this recipe on Primal Grill and wanted to try it out. The beans were excellent. I did some tweaking because for just the 3 of us we didn't need that many servings. The 2nd time which is what you are seeing in that photo I used my Colorado pinto beans. We were doing a brisket that day and ribs for another dinner. I decided my Charro bean recipe wouldn't suffer from being smoked either so I put a small batch on since there is plenty of room on that new smoker.
This is why the bean blog made front of the line. I was asked for the recipes on the beans. Um, when you write down recipes in this manner
it makes it kinda difficult to just shoot one to the person requesting it. There are probably 20 recipes in that photo. Yes, I know I am trying to train myself into writing them down in a notebook cause I will not remember what I did nor will I ever find those scraps of paper when I need them. Don't worry, Terry, that tomato soup recipe is in that group. I just need to translate it into a usable form for you.
Since I really didn't alter "The Best BBQ Bean" recipe too much I'll let you use your own judgment on what will work for you. The charro bean recipe requires a bit more explanation. I swear I saw a blog about them on Allrecipes by a member I haven't seen in years. To the best of my recollection she was describing what she had while on vacation. What she described sounded deliciously different so I thought I would try them. Naturally I did what I always do when trying to find a new "to me" type of recipe. Googled. A lot of recipes.
My first attempt was not well received but I was working with "scraps". I used sausage and some leftover tomato sauce from another dinner and seasoned it with what seemed to be the core seasonings. The second time I had what my DH calls "fresh" ingredients with the exception of the one he didn't see go in. I forgot to get any kind of sausage while shopping and it seems the more popular bean recipes have a spicy meat in them not ham or ham hocks. I surmised that my homemade salami would not only be spicy but would count towards cleaning out the deep freeze. Yes, I did cut the salami up really small and yes I did call it sausage for the W'2s (refer back to the "Whatever" blogs) benefit. They loved it and Alan thought it would be a good idea to take leftovers home. No, I don't have to worry about them ever finding out. The DH and DS have never read any of my blogs nor do I think they will ever start and Alan doesn't even have a computer so I am good!
This link is a starting point for the charro beans.
http://www.patismexicantable.com/2011/04/cowboy_charro_beans/
I just love Pati on public TV. She is so happy and fun while sharing her recipes. I truly suspect after reading many bean recipes that there are as many variations to this dish as there are cooks making it. For this household it pretty much goes like this; pinto beans cooked in homemade chicken stock, cumin, chopped garlic and onion, oregano, tomatoes either canned or fresh, chopped jalapenos or other spicy pepper dried or fresh to taste and some type of mildly spicy sausage. As far as smoking them, we did them several hours on the smoker. They went on several hours after the meat. I just checked whenever the DH opened the lid to make sure they weren't drying out. and of course sampled to see how the smoke flavor was going. Let me tell you they are GOOD!
I hope you enjoy these recipes if you try them and enjoyed my first blog back after my summer hiatus!
