Inexpensive but Scrumptious Beans

If you've read my Meal Plan Mondays posts, you may have noticed that we plan to eat beans about once a week around here... I say plan because it doesn't always happen - but we do eat them often! They're an excellent source of protein, they're fairly simple to make {no matter which way you cook them}, they're inexpensive, and, most importantly, they're quite scrumptious!

Confession: I didn't make our first pot of beans until we'd been married over two years... And while I'm confessing, I made that pot for refried beans - not to actually eat as beans. When we got home from church that night, the yummy smell overwhelmed us and we dug in! Now we eat them almost once a week!

You can find the original refried beans recipe here. And we cook beans with the same general recipe... We just don't blend them before eating! *Smile*

Here's what you need:
3 cups of dry pinto beans
9 cups of water {my sister-in-law uses leftover roast broth}
1/2 onion, diced
1 fresh jalepeno {you can cut it in half and seed it if you want, but I don't}
1 Tbsp minced garlic
cumin, salt and pepper {to taste}
optional: bacon grease or beef bouillon

Basic Directions:
Soak pinto beans in water overnight. In the morning, pour out the icky water and add fresh water {it'll need to cover the beans by a few inches}. Then, before cooking them, do it again! Add onion, jalepeno, garlic, spices and bacon grease or bouillon {if using}.

If you've got a pressure cooker, use it! Just add the lid, bring the beans to pressure, and cook 7-10 minutes. I let them depressurize naturally...

If you're using a crock pot, just switch out the water once {in the morning}. Add the remaining ingredients and cook on low for 6-8 hours or so...

You can also cook them on the stovetop, but since I've never done it that way {other than with my pressure cooker}, I don't know how long they take to cook that way...

I didn't have any onion when I cooked the pictured pot of beans, so the little pieces of food are minced onions... It really didn't affect the texture, but I'll probably use fresh onion next time.

How about you - do you cook beans? If so, what yummy ingredients do you add?

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