Pinto Beans into Bean Dip

A small bag of pinto beans simmered in the crock pot today, along with minced garlic, salt and red pepper flakes. This is a bean dip I plan to use for a seven-layer dip. Directions: rinse and pick through the pinto beans. Cover with about one inch of water. Cook on "high" in the crock pot for 6 hours. Check moisture and add chicken broth, if needed. Cover and cook another 2 hours. Adjust seasonings and use a potato masher to squish the beans. Use as a dip, or a substitute for "refried beans" in any taco or burrito recipe.

Shells and Cheese

Cheese-stuffed pasta shells aren't too exciting, but made for an easy dinner last night. The best part of this plate: the cherry tomatoes from the garden in the salad, and fresh-from-the-garden green beans.

Pinto Bean Dip

A bag of pinto beans on its way to becoming bean dip. The beans were soaked overnight and rinsed, then added to a crock pot without enough water to cover. Cook on high for 6 hours, throw in 6 cloves of garlic and return to high for 2 more hours. Mash beans and garlic with a potato masher and season to taste with salt and red pepper flakes. Before serving, stir in a small spoon of sour cream. We enjoy this bean dip with chips, and I used it for bean burritos last night. Beans, cheese, salsa, lettuce and tortilla chips rolled in a flour tortilla.

Six-Layer Dip

I had some leftover beans from the crockpot experiment last week, so they became the base for this six-layer dip. Beans, diced tomatoes, homemade guacamole, sour cream, diced onions and shredded cheddar-jack cheese. A great way to stretch the limited supplies I had of each ingredient.

The Beans are Ready for Chip-Dipping

The results from the bean dip experiment in the crockpot. I used a bag of kidney beans and let them simmer all day covered with water mixed with some chicken broth. Towards the end, I added red pepper flakes and garlic. It was still bland. Stirring in some sour cream helped. Adding some salt was good, too, and chopped cilantro and a little more red pepper. Not quite as good as the bean dip by friend Faith makes, but passable.

Eat Boise Challenge: One Bag of Beans

This is what I'm cooking up tomorrow - a $1 bag of beans. I'm thinking this will be a bean dip, but am open to suggestions!

Ham Bone and Bean Soup

Like many families, we had a meaty ham bone leftover from Christmas dinner, and it was the base for this soup. I soaked great northern beans overnight, then added a chopped onion, 2 cloves of minced garlic, the ham hone, 1 bay leaf, some celery salt, and enough water to cover it all in a large crockpot. I cooked on high for 6 hours, then removed the bone and scraped off any meat that hadn't already fallen off, and returned the meat to the soup. I cooked on low for another two hours, then scooped out about a cup of the beans and zipped them in the food processor and put them back in the soup to thicken it up. Shortly before serving, remove the bay leaf and season to taste. Add salt, white pepper, and this soup calls for something sweet. Maple syrup might be good, but I didn't have any, so I added some honey. A very filling soup. Maybe a fresh parsley garnish would be pretty. I served it with a fresh baquette.