Speaking of yummy winter meals...enter beans and cornbread.
Yesterday I made my first pot of pinto beans...ever...and verdict was? YUMMY! These will be a staple on our winter dinner menu.
I soaked about 2 pounds of pinto beans for 5 hours and while that was soaking, cooked up the most wonderful smelling mixture in the world.
Half a pound of bacon, chopped,
one onion, diced,
5 cloves of garlic, diced
a handful of cilantro leaves
There is no better smell in the whole world than this. This sauteed up for quite a while...until the bacon was fully cooked and the onions were getting translucent.
When that was done, I drained the grease off and dumped it in bottom of my crock pot. Into that mixture, I added 1 tsp of chili powder, cumin and salt. Drained the beans and dumped them on top of that, and topped with a can of drained diced tomatoes. Filled up the crock pot with water, and let them go. I think it was on low for a few hours, then I cranked it up to high to finish off.
They were DELICIOUS!!!! Jack loved them, my mom loved them, my (picky) sister loved them, Jeff (who told me he didn't like pinto beans) loved them...yeah, we'll be doing that again.
Now, no pinto bean dinner is complete without cornbread.
One summer after I graduated college (and moved to the arm pit of America to be close to my boyfriend...who broke up with me 2 weeks after I moved there...and worked as a skating car hop at Sonic...with a college degree) I worked with Beth up in Estes Park, Co. Replaced the arm pit of the world with the mountains of Colorado. Um, yes please!
Anyways, it was a bed and breakfast that served lunch. The food was very simple, only soups, salad, breads and desserts. But it was all oh so yummy! The cornbread there was the best...ever. I don't care which side of the fence you're on, unsweet or sweet. It doesn't matter. You'll like this cornbread.
1 cup butter
1 cup sugar
4 eggs
2 cups creamed corn
1/2 cup Monterrey jack cheese, grated
1/2 cup medium Cheddarr cheese, grated
1 cup all purpose flour
1 cup yellow cornmeal
4 teaspoons baking powder
1/4 teaspoons salt
Preheat oven to 350.
Cream butter and sugar, then add eggs one at a time.
Gradually mix in corn and cheeses.
Stir in remaining ingredients.
Spread evenly in a greased 9x13" cake pan.
(I added jalapenos to half of the pan...yummy!)
Place in oven and immediately reduce oven temperature to 300 degrees.
Bake for 1 hour.
Enjoy your beans and cornbread...weather man says it's supposed to be cooooooold next week!
1 comments:
The beans sound so good right now! And the cornbread... I know that cornbread, um, intimately.
Yeah for cold weather!
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