Ranch Beans

If you haven't yet tried a bowl of Ranch beans what are you waiting for? Have a bowl of beans with a nice warm piece of cornbread is a meal in it's self considering the bacon (or ham) that is part of the recipe you can have a meal in a bowl. The spices used in the beans you probably already have in your spice cabinet and most everyone in the South and Southwest have a few bags of pinto beans in the cupboard. So are you ready to get started? Great!

You can prepare you beans in one of two ways, the quick method and the overnight method. With this recipe I use the overnight method to soak the beans than cooked in' a pressure cooker set to high pressure for 3-4 minutes and let pressure to drop naturally.

Here is what you need:

1/2 pound of bacon cooked until crisped or cooked ham.
1 pound of beans (2.25 cups)
4-5 tomatoes chopped
2 medium white onions (or yellow if you like)
2-3 cloves of garlic, sliced (or equivalent crushed garlic)
1 Tablespoon =/-, chili powder
1/2 teaspoon +/- each, oregano and Cumin
Salt & pepper

Destructions:

1. Fry bacon until crispy while cooking chop onions, tomato and garlic add to pot of beans followed by enough water to cover with an additional inch of water.

2. Add remaining spices except salt and stir. Add salt after cooking is completed or beans may be hard.

3. Add crispy bacon to cooking vessel and stir to mix all ingredients together than seal pressure cooker and cook for 3 minutes once completed allow to naturally cool down.

As a note if you know that your beans are old you will require a longer cooking time. If by chance the beans are not soft after cooking just return beans to pressure for an additional 3 minutes and once again let cool naturally.

You can add any other ingredient that you wish to the recipe, below are some suggestions.

1 chopped and seeded jalapeno
Cilantro
1 Habanero, seeded and chopped
Creen chili's
Smoked ham
Chorizo

I hope you enjoy

Egg salad

Either you like egg salad or you don’t. I am one of those that love’s having an egg salad sandwich with a nice crispy leaf of romaine lettuce sandwiched between two slices of lightly toasted whole wheat bread. Mmmmm yummy!

Where am I going with this little story is quite simple, I was asked by a friend, a
co-worker to make some egg salad for him. I did not have a problem making the egg salad for him but I was curious how many different versions of egg salad exist in cyberspace. Typing “recipe egg salad” on Google’s dialog box and pressing enter, I was presented with a list of roughly 4,450 hits. Being a tad bit curious I peaked at a number of recipes and was surprised at what was added in addition to the simple egg salad recipe, some of the ingredients are widely varied and I have wondered how they would taste.
The below list “Other additions:” you will see what other home cooks have added to their egg salad recipe. What do you add that is different?

As you can see there are a number of variations for egg salad and as they say variety is the spice of life! So whether you use a basic recipe or expound upon a basic recipe you can barely go wrong with your concoction.

5 - 6 large eggs
1 - 2 tablespoons mayonnaise
Salt and pepper to taste
Yellow mustard
Celery seed


Other additions:
Lemon Juice
Extra yolks
Chili pepper, sliced and seeded
Mashed potato’s sub for mayo
Shrimp
Chopped bacon
Curry powder
Dill pickles, finely chopped
Dijon mustard
Yellow mustard
Finely diced onions
Finely diced red onions
Diced celery, two stalks
Chopped, fresh chives
Chopped, fresh dill
Chopped, fresh parsley
Capers
Chopped green olives
Chopped black olives
Grated carrot
Chopped scallions
Grated horseradish
Celery seed
Chopped apple
Apple cider vinegar
Sour cream
Ranch dressing
Yogurt, drained. Use instead of mayo
Pinch of cumin
Butter on the bread
Cider vinegar
Red or Yellow bell pepper, finely chopped