I love to cook. It's a favorite pastime. My wife, Queen Debbie.... not so much. But she has her stable of favorites. She does a mean pork tenderloin. She's all over soups without recipes—she grabs stuff from the fridge and pantry, concocts something, and it's pretty dadgum good...and I don't care that much for soup.
One thing she does, and succeeds, all the time, is beans.
The woman loves beans. Over time, she's dialed into a method, a process, a recipe that's a non-recipe, a way to cook pinto beans.
When I was growing up, we were poor. I remember my dad working at a second-hand furniture store, making $50 a week, in the early 1960's. Our rent was $50 per month. My mom had a system. One Sunday, she'd cook a roast, with potatoes, carrots and gravy. We'd have leftovers for a few days, then she'd do a pot of beans. Might be pinto beans, might be Navy beans, or even Lima beans, which we didn't like so much. Add fried potatoes, cornbread...whatever she could muster, and we'd eat.
The next Sunday, she might fry a chicken, with all the stuff, mashed potatoes, gravy, beans we didn't eat earlier in the week, and some type of vegetable, green beans, if they were in season.
Over those years, we had beans so often, I didn't realize they weren't meat...until years later, when Queen Debbie showed the difference. As a kid, I thought beans were meat. Debbie's beans are a delicacy. Here's what she does.
Ingredients
• 2 lbs. pinto beans
• 16 oz. Chicken broth
• Salt and pepper to taste.
• 12 ounces uncured bacon, with no preservatives. (She and I have friendly debates about preservatives...she reads every label every time. It doesn't matter what food it is, if there are preservatives in it, it doesn't go into the grocery basket...so I guess it's not truly a debate. She wins.)
• 1 medium yellow onion
• 1 can Rotel tomatoes
She pours the beans slowly into a big pot, watching for little chunks of dirt, just like her grandmother did. (I've never seen her pick out a piece of dirt.) She puts the beans into the pot and adds two boxes of chicken broth...the 16 ounces. She starts with low heat, and let's the pot warm slowly for a couple of hours. Within about an hour, the beans are simmering and beginning to swell. At a slow boil, she'll add water as the beans absorb the broth.
When her beans change color, into that brown shade, she'll add the bacon, at least 8 ounces. After the pot boils again, she'll chop the onion and add that, with the can of Rotel tomatoes.
The beans simmer and the juice thickens. If the beans begin to stick, she'll add a little more water. I asked her how long she cooks the beans. She has no idea...she keeps them simmering until they're done. Along the way, she'll taste, add some salt, or not.
Those beans are spectacular.
I still think beans are meat.
