Beans and Peas - Texas terminology! (versus, to eat, yard)
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I kind of figured the water hardness played a role in it, but I wasn't positive on it.
Being the fan of old fashioned that I am, and moving to a place that I know has some water that is less than desirable, I intend to make a... ahem... water purification device.
Of course it will be made out of copper, sit over a fire, and have a long copper pipe that runs out the side of the top of its main boiler. Some people would mistake it for a device typically associated with fermented mash, but my sole intent is water purification.
I am kind of curious to try a straight water run of frijoles, and a 100% pure distilled water run from the same age, over the same fire and in the same type and size pots, now. (And I can use fresh chiltecpin in them again! )
Hmmmmm....your own private water purification system, eh?? Sounds interesting!!
I just thought the water in WT was hard.....the water here is so hard that the dog's water bowl had a white ring from water deposits on the SAME day. So.....I have RO drinking water and a water softener for the house. Water this hard will ruin things in very short order! My money says that the beans cooked in distilled/RO water will cook faster and be more tender than those cooked in hard water...but it also depends on how hard said water is!
Chiltecpin?? I had to leave my bush behind...*snif*.....I was hoping to start a new ground bush here from seed, but I found out that they don't grow so well at altitudes above 2600 feet or so. I was able to grow them inground in Midland (2800 ft), but I imagine it is too high here. I hope to get a couple of container plants going for next season. I saved seed from my bush last year, and there are always wild bushes growing around my parents' place. They are my very favorite of all......
Speaking of beans my grandmother (born 1885 east of Paris, Texas) always used Mexene Chili Powder -- the others just don't taste right to me..she also soaked the beans in water with baking soda.
I'm 50 and I feel so privileged to have known and loved someone from the 1800s, especially since it is now the 2000s.
Speaking of beans my grandmother (born 1885 east of Paris, Texas) always used Mexene Chili Powder -- the others just don't taste right to me..she also soaked the beans in water with baking soda.
I'm 50 and I feel so privileged to have known and loved someone from the 1800s, especially since it is now the 2000s.
Do you mean chili powder in pinto beans? I've never done that.....
I must be the only person on this board that had grandmothers who were just lousy cooks...BOTH of them, LOL!! I guess that's why both my mom and dad are good cooks....they learned out of self defense...
The water has always made a difference..in very hard water, they sometimes never soften and cook!! But I never considered altitude!! I'm having to work on baking (biscuits, muffins, bread machine), making adjustments there....but I haven't done beans here yet!
The way you do them sounds like the way I always did them (other than trying rapid boil once or twice), except stovetop! Midland was at almost 3,000 ft.....and I hadn't cooked them stovetop in years there. Here (Alamogordo, NM), it's even higher, at 4350 feet!
So, I guess it's back to the crockpot. The age of the beans seems to make a big difference, too. Newer beans cook more quickly and cook up lighter than older beans that have sat in the pantry forever.
I also always used bottled water when I found out that hard water makes a huge difference in how long it takes them to soften up!
Cathy, I don't like beans that have sat too long and gotten old, usually wind up throwing them out. After we started getting pintos from Colorado in large quantities, I started putting them in freezer bags and freezing them. Just take out the amount you want to cook, sort through and wash them, then cook as usual. The beans taste and cook up just like the day you got them.
Cathy, I don't like beans that have sat too long and gotten old, usually wind up throwing them out. After we started getting pintos from Colorado in large quantities, I started putting them in freezer bags and freezing them. Just take out the amount you want to cook, sort through and wash them, then cook as usual. The beans taste and cook up just like the day you got them.
Freezing dried beans?? Hey, thanks for the tip.....that would never have occurred to me.
I don't know why...as I have a small freezer out in the garage that I keep everything in...flour, grains, etc.
Location: Live Oak Co. in the Great Republic of Texas!
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Chiltecpin (Capsicum annuum var. aviculare) is a wild pepper that grows in south Texas, southern west Texas and southern central Texas. It is our official native pepper. Common names often given to it are chilipiquin, tepin, pequin, bird pepper, and flea pepper. It is typically listed at between 50,000 and 100,000 Scoville Units, along side the Thai pepper and right below the Habanero.
For years, I have had to pick them each time I was down, bring them back and then dry them out. While dried they still pack a little pep, they just don't have the great flavor I grew up eating straight off the bush as a kid. By next week I will be able to swipe them off of the vine again!
Ingredients that go into my frijoles are of course, pinto beans, water, cumin, New Mexico red ground chile, bacon slice (cut into bits), black pepper, a slight bit of salt, a dash of garlic powder, jalapenos, habanero (if on hand), chiltecpin, a pinch of cilantro, oregano, onion, and a drop (just a single drop) of tequila.
The tequila drop is literally that, a drop in the bucket, and adds absolutely no taste, there is a story behind that one that involves a friend making frijoles drunk and sloshing the tequila into them. It is simply a homage to him.
Chiltecpin (Capsicum annuum var. aviculare) is a wild pepper that grows in south Texas, southern west Texas and southern central Texas. It is our official native pepper. Common names often given to it are chilipiquin, tepin, pequin, bird pepper, and flea pepper. It is typically listed at between 50,000 and 100,000 Scoville Units, along side the Thai pepper and right below the Habanero.
For years, I have had to pick them each time I was down, bring them back and then dry them out. While dried they still pack a little pep, they just don't have the great flavor I grew up eating straight off the bush as a kid. By next week I will be able to swipe them off of the vine again!
Ingredients that go into my frijoles are of course, pinto beans, water, cumin, New Mexico red ground chile, bacon slice (cut into bits), black pepper, a slight bit of salt, a dash of garlic powder, jalapenos, habanero (if on hand), chiltecpin, a pinch of cilantro, oregano, onion, and a drop (just a single drop) of tequila.
The tequila drop is literally that, a drop in the bucket, and adds absolutely no taste, there is a story behind that one that involves a friend making frijoles drunk and sloshing the tequila into them. It is simply a homage to him.
Boy, you put a LOT of things in with your beans......
I grew up with wild chiltepines growing in the back pasture...and they are still around in various places on my parents' property. They were called "chile petines" more often than not. Since the bush I had grown in the backyard (under an overhang, southern wall, since they always are found under some "nurse" plant in nature) was around 8 years old, I needed to start a new one anyway, and that's why I didn't dig it up and stick it in a container. As you probably already know, they are finicky as h*** when you try to transport them.
I need to carry dried crushed chiltepine in my purse for all of the wussy sauces they have here...LOL!!
I found a couple of habanero plants that I will transplant soon, but they're orange...and I like the reds better!
Location: Live Oak Co. in the Great Republic of Texas!
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I guess I add so much to it given the proximity to the border of where I grew up. I was instructed on frijoles 101 from a Hispanic man as a kid. I am not going to say they are the best beans ever, cause I think of myself as a lousy cook to begin with, but I am the only one who I have heard complain about them. (Call it the perfectionism that I tend to suffer from, or whatever you may pass it off as.) I am obviously not counting the lightweights that think a jalapeno is the hottest thing on the planet, and consider Tobasco sauce a "hot sauce". They always make the complaint of my beans being way too hot.
I like both red and orange habanero equally. The green ones don't taste quite as good to me, but are still passable for munching on.
I figured after I saw you put question marks after chiltecpin that even though you knew it, some non-chilehead reading might wonder what we were talking about.
Last year when I was down, I picked 3 big freezer bags full of chiltecpin and dried them. (I gave up on trying to transplant them in pots after 3 failed attempts.) That was in June, and currently all that is left is about a quarter of one very small sandwich bag. I hope that I can make it until Tuesday before I run out. I carry a days supply in a little baggy inside a cigarette tin in my pocket when I venture from home.
It is always funny to see people stare at me doctoring a meal with them. I did even have one man ask me what I was putting in my burger at a Burger King one day. I have never seen someone turn so pretty of a shade of red and guzzle so much drink as he did when he ate the one I offered him.
Oh yeah, they repel Jehovah's Witnesses when they come knocking at the door while making chili, too. Guess they don't like the capscaisin floating in the air.
I guess I add so much to it given the proximity to the border of where I grew up. I was instructed on frijoles 101 from a Hispanic man as a kid. I am not going to say they are the best beans ever, cause I think of myself as a lousy cook to begin with, but I am the only one who I have heard complain about them. (Call it the perfectionism that I tend to suffer from, or whatever you may pass it off as.) I am obviously not counting the lightweights that think a jalapeno is the hottest thing on the planet, and consider Tobasco sauce a "hot sauce". They always make the complaint of my beans being way too hot.
I like both red and orange habanero equally. The green ones don't taste quite as good to me, but are still passable for munching on.
I figured after I saw you put question marks after chiltecpin that even though you knew it, some non-chilehead reading might wonder what we were talking about.
Last year when I was down, I picked 3 big freezer bags full of chiltecpin and dried them. (I gave up on trying to transplant them in pots after 3 failed attempts.) That was in June, and currently all that is left is about a quarter of one very small sandwich bag. I hope that I can make it until Tuesday before I run out. I carry a days supply in a little baggy inside a cigarette tin in my pocket when I venture from home.
It is always funny to see people stare at me doctoring a meal with them. I did even have one man ask me what I was putting in my burger at a Burger King one day. I have never seen someone turn so pretty of a shade of red and guzzle so much drink as he did when he ate the one I offered him.
Oh yeah, they repel Jehovah's Witnesses when they come knocking at the door while making chili, too. Guess they don't like the capscaisin floating in the air.
3 freezer bags?? Whoa!! I would kill to be able to gather that many at one time!!
It is funny to watch the reactions, isn't it? The red face/sweat, et al, LOL!!
I have had some small success with transport......my mom dug up 4 little ones for me, and ONE of those survived to become my main ground bush.
My aunt dug up 6 for me once. I picked them up, brought them back to Midland...and two of those survived as container plants for about 8-10 years. They are not perennial in West Texas. I cut mine back after the last harvest (around Nov)....including the containers, which I kept in the garage...and I covered up the cutback ground bushes. They'd come back in the spring, every year, as long as I watered them occasionally during the winter, about every 4-6 weeks or so.
Do they produce all year around in South Texas? I plan to start some from seed this next January for the following season.
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