Chuckwagon beans
This is a cattle trail recipe. Although this was originally done on the campfire, you can do this on the stove most times as practice before you head out to the fire ring.
You will need
16-ounce package of dry pinto beans
9 cups of water
Two large onions, peeled and chopped up
2 teaspoons of salt
½ teaspoon of oregano
½ teaspoon of garlic powder, or two cloves of minced garlic
¼ teaspoon of pepper
1 tablespoon of brown sugar or molasses (add this last, in the last 20 minutes of cooking and to taste – more or less.)
Pick through and WASH the beans and boil them in 6 cups of water for 5-10 minutes. either turn off heat and let them set OR remove from the fire if you want to for an hour and work on other kitchen chores. You can also leave them on low heat [with an extra 3 cups of water] for the next hour adding water as needed.
After the beans are tender add everything else, mix well, and cook it for about another hour.
Cowpokes and early settlers had to settle for foods which were portable. That meant a basic menu of beans and lots of meat. For a treat, there was cornbread, biscuits, or rice. Pinto beans (which are small and spotted when raw, like a pinto pony) seemed to be the favorite. When cooked, these beans swell up and turn a sort of pinkish white. They were first given to the settlers by the natives on the Mexican / US border.
When you eat beans with rice or corn OR better yet both, the foods mix up inside your body to create an important type of protein which is like the protein in meat. (Your body is made largely of protein, and so you need to eat enough to build and repair muscle — However you do NOT NEED a lot of meat to be healthy and strong- look to the OX and any ‘extra’ protein to take in is converted carbs and fat) That’s why the native peoples were so healthy with a diet of mostly beans and corn and not much meat.
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