Beans and Cornbread

Alternately titled- The post where I don't measure ingredients.

I'm into trying new recipes here recently. Beans and cornbread isn't anything new to me, but I've never made it. When I was growing up my grandma used to have a pot of beans on the stove at least once a week. They're easy to make and I guess you could even make them in the crock pot if you wanted.


Beans and Cornbread
What you need-
3 cups dried pinto beans
3 slices bacon
Salt & pepper
Cayenne pepper (amount depends on how spicy you like, I didn't really measure)
Garlic powder (a couple of shakes)
Tony C's spicy seasoning (to taste)
Lots of water

First, rinse the beans in a colander under cold running water. Make sure your beans are really beans and that there aren't any rocks.

Drain the beans. Grab your bacon and slice it into 1-inch pieces.

Throw the bacon and beans into a large pot. A dutch oven is good, if you have one. I don't. Just put enough water to cover the beans by a couple of inches.

Turn the heat on medium-high until the beans just begin to boil, then put the heat on low and put the lid on the pot. Let the beans simmer for a few hours. I had mine going for about three and a half hours. The beans are done when they are tender and the skin is NOT TOUGH!

Now every once in a while you need to check the water level of the beans because it evaporates fast. Just keep adding water. 

A bit before your ready to serve the beans, add in whatever seasonings you have. Cayenne (I put more than 1/4 of a tsp of these spices in the beans).

Tony C's spicy seasoning.

Garlic powder.

Stir and taste for seasoning, then add salt and pepper to taste. Now all you need is the cornbread. I made mine out of the blue box and it was  almost as good as homemade.

I'm surprised Chris called it a meal, considering there wasn't much meat in it. Sometimes my grandma puts sausage or ground meat in her beans but I don't like that nearly as much as I do the bacon flavor. I also made these to go along with our nearly meatless meal...


Roasted Tomatoes
What you need-
A big fat tomato
Oil for drizzling
Dried herbs (I used thyme)
Onion pepper
Salt and pepper

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Slice up your tomato, pretty thick, I actually sliced mine a little to thin. 

Lay the tomato onto a roasting pan and drizzle oil over top of each slice. Season with all of the spices.

Roast in the oven for about 20 minutes or until they look like this-

And that's it.