Cowboy Beans

Recipe from The Bitten Word and adapted from Food and Wine magazine.
New York Steak, Corn Salad, Cowboy Beans, Grilled Romaine.  And cheese, of course.
My family's arrival from Arizona prompted an early summer sort of dinner.  I'd been thinking about the menu and flashed on two things:  Cowboy beans and Roasted Corn Salad. 

Cowboy beans, ala the Lord's Acre annual harvest festival in Powell Butte, sounded mighty good.  They are cooked in vats in deep charcoal pits and the flavor is astounding, not baked bean sweet.  Smoky.  I do love my beans.   I chose the following recipe because of the small amount of molasses.  That and the bacon:bean ratio.  And it is good. 

I cooked the beans for an hour the first night, (step 1.)  Finished up with step 2 the next day - but cooked them approximately three hours (because I was not organized).  The texture of the beans was more baked-beanish, the jalapenos pretty much melted - but not their flavor.  

Next post:  the corn salad recipe.  My SIL was over the moon for this dish.  Actually, for everything.  Baby Henry tried little bits of all while Rosie did floor duty.  She's a trooper.

ACTIVE: 20 MIN
    •    TOTAL TIME: 2 HRS
    •    SERVINGS: 10

Ingredients

    •    4 cans black-eyed peas, rinsed
    •    1 quart low-sodium chicken broth
    •    3/4 pound thickly sliced bacon, sliced crosswise 1/4 inch thick
    •    16 garlic cloves, peeled
    •    3 large jalapeños—halved, stemmed and seeded
    •    1 tablespoon dried thyme
    •    1 tablespoon dried oregano
    •    2 large bay leaves
    •    3 tablespoons stone-ground mustard
    •    Kosher salt and coarsely ground black pepper
    •    1/4 cup molasses

Directions

    1.  Drain and rinse the beans and place them in a pot. Add the broth, bacon, garlic, jalapeños, thyme, oregano, bay leaves and 2 quarts of water and bring to a boil. Simmer over moderately low heat for one hour.
    2. Discard the jalapeños and bay leaves. Pick out and mash the garlic cloves, then stir them back into the beans. Stir in the molasses; continue cooking for 1 hour more. Season the beans with salt and pepper. Serve.

Make Ahead

The charro beans can be refrigerated for up to 2 days.

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