Those sound wonderful.

Been cooking and eating them that way here for at least 3 generations.
I would skip the toasting of dried chilis too, it may bring a little more flavor out but mostly it just makes a mess and smokes up the joint. I also wouldn't bother sauteeing the other vegs.

I would probably just use chili powder for something like this. Processing dried pods it OK if it is a regular thing and you are used to it/have a system. (or if you just want to learn how to do it) But in terms of the flavor vs the amount of work...meh.

When I do do it I usually yank off the stems, break them in half and shake out as much seed as is reasonable (a few seeds aren't going to hurt anybody), toss them in a sauce pan, cover with water and bring to a boil. depending on how hard/dry they are either simmer for a bit or just let them soak for half an hour or whatever. Then when a bit cool poor a couple cups at a time into the blender and run it. If you don't need that much liquid for the recipe, strain some out but you do need some for the blender to work.

And I really half to laugh at the idea of only cooking a pound of beans. I usually do at least 2 or 3 lbs. They freeze fine, but we eat them all the time so usually a pot or 2 a week. (Ranch beans to me are just pintos with a ham bone, salt pork, or some bacon, onion, garlic and a little black pepper all simmered low for 5 or 6 hours, add salt to taste when done, not before)

Next try frijoles charros with fresh jalepenos, tomatoes, onion added at the end of cooking. (in this case the vegs can be sauted a bit. (AKA frijoles boracho if you also add a can of beer)

just cook the dried beans with garlic, bay leaves, onions. If I happen to have a hambone, I'll throw that in. What I want is to marry that thick/rich flavor to the bean broth without adding meat. Also don't want to make it very spicy since the family members who will be at the event absolutely cannot handle the fire...Lots of children and delicate sensitivities (if you catch my drift.)

I'm with you on not soaking beans. I usually just start cooking them and cook until they're done. Here in GA, it only takes about 3 hrs. As for only cooking 1 pound o' beans, I ain't cooking for the bunkhouse. I live alone and am only cooking for a small family gathering for one weekend. I know that beans will freeze well, esp. if you let them completely thaw in the refrig. and then refrain from stirring the hell out of them when you're reheating. Some weeks I cook field peas, sometimes it's crowders, every now and then I cook fordhooks or itty bitty lima beans, but we're a small family unit and don't need huge quantities.

We just don't have them in the Pacific Northwest that I know of. I sure would like to try them.

them every year and put them in the freezer to eat in the winter. Black-eyed peas are a type of field pea, and most of them are similar in taste and texture, but zipper peas and lady cream peas are truly at the top of the heap. I think there is a link in the blog post that has a source for dried field peas if you're inclined to try them. My daughter lives in Portland and will soon be moving across the river into Washington. She really misses lots of things about the South, esp. field peas and some of the other vegetables that are grown in red Georgia clay. She is fortunate enough to have a soul food restaurant nearby, at least for now. I wonder if you can find canned field peas in your grocery store. Margaret Holmes brand is a decent substitute for fresh or frozen peas, esp. if you rinse them and then heat in broth.


http://www.deepsouthdish.com/2012/05/southern-style-lady-cream-peas.html#axzz32ZuW1Lgq

Beans are something that doesn't get made often in this house (kids hate 'em) so I'm going to try this recipe (and take the other posts into consideration as well). My only issue - I haven't seen pinto beans around...what is a good substitute?

whole world. Dried small red beans, black beans, or even red kidney beans would work okay, I think. I am planning on cooking mine tomorrow. Let's compare notes afterwards.

I live in Canada...near Edmonton. Getting any kind of Mexican food ingredients around here is super difficult. We have a huge amount of other kinds of ethnic food...not so much Mexican (other than the premixed taco spices and things like that). It's getting better and I'm sure I could find pinto beans if I looked around, but my local store definitely doesn't have them. I have a hard time finding anything other than chick peas, lentils, kidney beans and black beans.

I do have black beans so I think I'll try those. I'm not sure what day I'll do this - but I'll definitely post the results!

dried chiles? If not, just use chile powder. BTW, if you don't know about Penzey's spices, they have excellent chile powders if you can't get anything good locally.

http://www.penzeys.com/

but I haven't searched very hard. Most ethnic stores around here carry Indian, Middle Eastern or Asian ingredients. Some carry Jamaican stuff too.

......

Okay, I thought, what the heck, I'll google it and found one about 20-25 minutes away that I could stop by sometime soon next time I'm in the city. It has good reviews (by transplanted southern Americans, no less, lol.) Apparently they carry everything I'd need for this recipe, so I'll have to stop in soon.

off the beaten path, both literally and gastronomically.

and it was quite a bit smaller than I thought it would be. However, I was able to get everything on my list. They didn't have fresh produce, which was disappointing, but they had plenty of interesting canned goods. It was a lot pricier than I expected as well (the Indian groceries around here have super low prices). They had an amazing selection of dried chilies (I think I counted a dozen or so). I will probably go back, since I haven't seen this stuff anywhere else.

So I bought a huge bag of dried pinto beans, canned tomatillos, dried ancho chilies, dried California chilies (I had never heard of these and they weren't on my list, but I thought, what the heck, they looked really good, lol), mole sauce (I have never actually tried mole sauce), corn flour, Oaxaca cheese, canned chipotle peppers...hmmm I think that's it. Oh, Mexican oregano too, and another spice that I can't remember the name offhand, but is in some recipe I want to try. One thing that wasn't on my list was corn tortillas - they had these huge packages and I hmm'ed and haw'ed and I ended up not buying them, but now I regret it, LOL. They were handmade and were in the fridge section - but I wasn't sure we could use that many (it was a stack about 18 inches high). I had my kids with me, plus some of their friends, so was trying to get out of there in a hurry and made a quick, but wrong, decision.

Anyway, we had this recipe on wheat flour tortillas last night: http://www.mexicoinmykitchen.com/2014/05/chilorio-recipe.html
I also made a hot green sauce with my canned tomatillos.

omg, it was so good. My kids LOVED it. They couldn't get enough, LOL.
Next up is the beans...we got home too late last night to try it, but I'm going to try to remember to put the beans to soak and make it tomorrow. I'll let you know how it turns out.

has many Hispanic markets and they all have fresh tomatillos, chiles, and other produce. My favorite thing is when I go to pay for my goods and ask for avocados, they ask, "do you want for today or tomorrow?" They nail it more often than I do buying avocados at Kroger.

I loved the flavor of the beans and will make these again. They are what I remember from being in Texas from 1950s until recent years. I think my family members used Gebhardt chile powder to make their sauces and this tastes very similar to the chile my Granny made.

of the extra time it took to de-seed/de-vein and re-hydrate them. I cannot adequately describe the rich flavor and color, the olfactory/gustatory delights I experienced with this method of cooking a simple dried bean. This will be in my family recipe collection as "Seguin Beans," in honor of my family who migrated from Boston to Texas in the 1830s and have lived there ever since.

Before you go to bed at night:

1 pound dried pintos
one onion chopped
3 or 4 cloves garlic
1 ham hock
2 or 3 dried chile peppers - New Mexico or Ancho - stemmed and seeded, rinsed don't need to chop

Rinse beans in hot water a few minutes. Put in slow cooker along with other ingredients. Cover with plenty of water as the beans will swell. Cook overnight on lowest setting.

In the morning, remove garlic cloves and chile peppers and discard. Remove ham hock and if any good ham on bone, cut and dice the meat and add back to beans. Discard bone and ham hock fat.

Add a can of diced tomatoes, salt and pepper to taste, some chopped cilantro. For a little more heat, add two or three chopped Serranos or Jalapenos. Add more water if needed. Cook on high setting of slow cooker, should cook an hour or two depending on your slow cooker.

If the liquid is right, the beans will have a thick broth and you can eat them like soup, so good with some fresh baked corn bread.

cornbread and chopped onions just isn't right (in my "southern" mind) although my family members in Texas eat beans & brisket with white bread, pickles and onions, and that is what most of the BBQ places serve as "sides" in the little town where my family lived.

extra broth, which I ate as a soup. It is thick, very rich, flavorful, and the color is gorgeous. I followed the recipe as written except I didn't cook the anchos on a cast iron skillet before rehydrating them. I just took off the stems and cut out the seeds and membranes, then soaked in hot water. Also, it takes a bit more oil to saute the onions and garlic.

This is exactly the flavor I have been craving, and maybe better.

I say they are really good. I did the same as you with the anchos. I also added some canned green chilies. I added more spices too (I usually add big heaping spoons, not level teaspoons). As you said, it was a bit liquid-y so I turned up the heat and let it cook for the last hour without a lid. I had to cook mine for 4 hours total. I always have a hard time getting beans to soften. I don't know why. But in the end all was great

when I put them in the pot, so I cooked them awhile longer too. My Dad always complained if the beans rattled when they hit the plate!

I think, in the future, I might just cook the beans in the broth for a bit, before I add the spices, tomatoes, etc.