Pot of Beans for New Year's--Good Luck for 2014!

Pintos garnished with plain Greek yogurt and Frontera salsa

This is a favorite pot of "good luck" beans I'm reposting for New Year's.  Invite a friend, put on a movie, and enjoy a wonderful pot of healthy, inexpensive goodness.  If you have a slow-cooker, all the better!  Nobody available?  Cook them anyway.   Enjoy the movie and freeze a few containers for lunches.

When I was a kid, a pot of beans sounded nasty to me.  It smacked of nothing to do out in the country (except make a pot of beans) and I didn't particularly like the taste of beans--particularly pintos.  My parents grew all kinds of vegetables and they were fond of many sorts of beans and peas; our neighbors were of a similar ilk.  Married during the depression, but first raised on or near the farm, they all knew every trick for saving money on food.  Moving to the big city, they searched for a piece of land out a ways in order to plant that garden every year.  (Weed, can, water, repeat.)

Black Pepper-Green Onion Cornbread

I love beans and cornbread.  Plain old pinto beans with onions and maybe some ground beef--a bit of ham if you're flush.  I make them when life is fine and when life is low. I crumble cornbread into the beans or I butter it up and have it leftover with my coffee of a morning.  It is comfort food par excellence.  And, oh, by the way, it's simple and filling.  Honey?  Yes.  But not required.

If you're tired of your sweet cornbread, or wish for one of the grittier experiences of dining life, try this: 

Help! I've Got Leftover Take-Out Rice and Don't Know What to Do with It

Leftover Take-Out Rice Salad

Do you leave all that extra rice at the Chinese place?  (What do they do with all that rice?  Make fried rice!)  When you pick up take-out and there's two of those "little" boxes stuffed to the gills with white rice, do you eat it all?  Do you soy sauce it up with a scrambled egg for breakfast? That's one idea.  Throw it in chicken broth with chopped green onions, a drop of soy sauce, and shredded deli chicken?  That's another.

Pot of Pinto Beans-Simple Pictures are Best

Pintos garnished with plain Greek yogurt and Frontera salsa

When I was a kid, a pot of beans sounded nasty to me.  It smacked of nothing to do out in the country (except make a pot of beans) and I didn't particularly like the taste of beans--particularly pintos.  My parents grew all kinds of vegetables and they were fond of many sorts of beans and peas; our neighbors were of a similar ilk.  Married during the depression, but first raised on or near the farm, they all knew every trick for saving money on food.  Moving to the big city, they searched for a piece of land out a ways in order to plant that garden every year.  (Weed, can, water, repeat.)