Every time I cook with beans, I can’t help but sing the song my dad taught us when we were little:

“Beans, beans,
the musical fruit.
The more you eat;
The more you toot.
The more you toot;
The better you feel.
So let’s have beans,
For every meal.”

Yeah, we were a serious family growing up. That’s why I can still recite Army cadences, much to my mom’s horror (as I think she would scold my dad for teaching them to us) and my dad’s delight.  My favorite still involves a little bird…but that’s not for polite company. I digress.

Being married to a vegetarian, you learn a few things.  How to deal with tofu, the different kinds of veggie proteins, and how to cook with beans. 

My mom was taught to make chili by my grandma, and the recipe, in a slightly different variation, is used by all of the kids now.  For me, it remove the beef – and add lots of beans.  Sometimes I add protein that looks and acts like ground beef, but not today (the Hubby forgot it at the store – and I’m not too worried.)

I have over the past year fallen in love with cooking with dry beans.  Since I had some great success making pinto beans earlier in the week with the crock pot, I decided to try to use the same method today.  I use at least 3 different types of beans for my chili.  Today, I used black, pinto and red kidney beans.  Here is the before shot:

In case you are wondering, to this pot, I added a lot of water – a lot of water, 4 cloves of garlic crushed & chopped, and a small onion.  It’s been cooking on high for about 5 hours now.

To make the chili, I will probably add some more garlic (I love garlic), a couple cans of crushed tomatoes, cumin, chili powder, salt and pepper.  All are added to taste.  Then I cook it until ready.  (I apologize, but whenever anyone asks how long something should cook, my serious but smart-ass answer is “until done”.  I can’t help it, truly I can’t.  It drives the Hubby nutty sometimes especially when baking.)

Hope everyone has had a great weekend!