Some recipes are better served as leftovers. And my Latin-flavored Chicken Tinga recipe fits the bill. Chicken that's cooked in smoky chipotle red chiles in adobo and tomato sauce tastes better over time. Click here to see the recipe, or watch my recipe video at the end of this blog post.
Chicken Tinga
It's an intense taste that you can soften with the addition of pinto beans and rice. And keep the flavors building by adding chopped onion, cheese and sprigs of cilantro. It's basically a bowl of chile with all the toppings, and more.
Chicken Tingais one of my go-to recipes when I have a backyard patio party. I just set out a steaming bowl of slow cooked Mexican stew, with a pile of tortillas and homemade salsa, and let the guest build their own.
I usually have a pot of pinto beans on the stove that has been filling the kitchen with it's soothing aroma. Some gluten averse guests will skip the tortillas and make a simple Chicken Tinga Bowl.
Chicken Tinga Bowl
I don't always have leftovers, but when I do I like the addition of my Mom's Mexican Rice. Saute a little onion and garlic, then tint the rice with a tablespoon of tomato paste. Mexican Rice and Pinto Beans(from a can or homemade) are the base to any Leftover Bowls, like my Carnitas Bowl I made a while ago, here.
Homemade Pinto Beans - Video Recipe
So, start the bowl by heating up the beans, rice and Chicken Tinga in the microwave, or stove top.
I like a little crunch from fresh chopped red onion, finishing the Chicken Tinga Bowl with melty cheese and brightly flavored cilantro.
You can gild the lilly by adding your favorite spicy salsa. So click on any recipe name above to get all the tasty details and make your own Chicken Tinga Bowl.
I grew up eating Pinto Beans. We had them added to breakfast, lunch and dinner. After you watch my latest video recipe you'll see how easy it is to do for yourself - and you don't have to have them for every meal like I did.
My latest cheap$kate homemade recipe is a long time coming. I cook with Pinto Beans more than any other legume, everything from chile flavored Texas-style Beans to creamy Refried Beans. I enjoy making Mexican entrees often and Mexican-style Pinto Beans show up every time.
And I'm not to proud to use Pinto Beans from the can - they are cheap enough, taste fine, and are so convenient - the same way I always keep a couple cans of tomato sauce for pasta at the ready.
Dried pinto beans are tan, with leopard-like spots, which fade to deep brown when cooked for hours.
My mother comes from a small fishing village on the Gulf Coast of Texas, and we lived there with her parents, Big Daddy and Big Mama, for a year or so. Big Mama always had a pot of beans going. These legumes showed up for breakfast as Scrambled Eggs with Refried Beans; for lunch it could be fresh made flour torilllas that we made into Ground Beef Tacos with Beans and Rice; and for dinner Mexican Rice with Shrimp served with Pinto Beans.
So you see how Mexican-style Pinto Beans can be paired with almost any Latin entree, and as a BBQ side dish with cool coleslaw or potato salad.
Pinto Beans are inexpensive at almost any grocery store, and especially at Latin markets. This recipe is perfect for my fellow cult cheap$kate followers .
And it's a short and easy-to-get ingredients list, so you can make your own pot of beans no matter where you live. Dried Pinto Beans are carried everywhere. You can use fresh chopped onion and garlic - but there is nothing wrong with using shortcuts like dried onion flakes and garlic powder.
The spices are dried oregano, cumin and a bay leaf - finishing up with salt and pepper.
My Mexican-style Pinto Bean recipe is tasty without meat. But if you are so inclined, then add smoky pork flavor with a few slices of bacon, some chopped ham chunks, or a ham hock.
It does take about 4 hours to tenderize pinto beans, so, you may want a book or magazine handy to help fill the time.
Some like their beans with a bit of texture, while others like them very tender. You know your friends and family, so it's up to you to decide how long to cook beans. Soak the beans overnight and cut down on the cooking time by an hour or so.
Once the beans are tender, it's a simple step to make Refried Beans, too. All you do is add a couple of cups tender beans to a heating frying pan that has a tablespoon of oil. Next, pour in a few tablespoons of bean broth. What you want is enough liquid to mix with mashed beans until desired creaminess is reached. If you add too much liquid, then add more beans.
My YouTube video link for viewing or embedding, just click here.
Ingredients
1 pound dried pinto beans - rinse and remove any debris, if necessary
1 onion - chopped. Yellow or white onion.
1 tablespoon garlic - chopped fresh or from jar.
1 teaspoon dried oregano
1 teaspoon ground cumin
1 bay leaf
1 tablespoon oil
Salt and pepper to taste
9 cups of water - for extra vegetarian flavor, add a cup or two of veggie broth (be sure to reduce water an equal amount.)
*For extra flavor add a slice or two of bacon. You can also add any of the following: a ham hock, ham bone, or chunks of ham.
Directions
If you like bacon in your beans then start sauteing a couple of slices in a large pot.
For vegetarian Pinto Beans go right to adding a tablespoon of oil to a large pot with a cover.
Click on any photo to see larger.
Add one chopped onion and saute for 5 minutes until tender. Add chopped garlic and saute another minute.
Sprinkle on ground cumin, dried oregano and salt and pepper to taste. Recipes call for Mexican oregano, but you can use any type, really.
Now time to add the beans. Rinse and remove any debris from dried pinto beans, if necessary. Cook beans in a any large pot. I have a clay one that is especially used for cooking beans in.
Add pinto beans to a large pot with 9 cups of water. Add one bay leaf.
*You can soak beans overnight or a few hours first. I usually just go right to getting the water to come to a boil, without soaking them. It's up to you, soaking will speed up the cooking time, you will save about an hour of simmering.
If you add veggie broth be sure to reduce the water amount.
Bring the pot of beans to a boil. Reduce heat to a low simmer and cover the pot of beans.
Cook covered until beans are tender, anywhere from 3-5 hours. You can start tasting them after a few hours to check for tenderness. Stir occasionally, so beans don't burn or stick to bottom of the pot.
And check beans from time to time to make sure liquid doesn't cook out. Add water as needed. What you want is for some of the water to cook out, so you get a thick soup of broth with the beans.
As with any type of slow cooking, make sure to stir from time-to-time.
Sometimes the beans will stick to the bottom of the pot, so scrape and stir before they burn.
To thicken bean broth, uncover and continue cooking the last half hour or so. You can also mash some of the beans to thicken sauce.
Pinto beans can cook all day at a low temperature. This recipe works fine for a crock pot.
Hindsight
Soak beans in water overnight to cut down on cooking time by an hour or so.
The beans will taste even better the next day. Pinto Beans freeze well, so make plenty for later.
It's easy to make Refried Beans. Just add some cooked whole pinto beans to a frying pan with a little oil. Mash the beans with a fork or potato masher until mushy. Just stir and cook the beans until hot. You can add bean broth to make the Refried Beans texture as thick or thin as you like.
What to do with leftovers? For this new series I'll give you some edible ideas. First up is a loaded Carnitas Bowl. You've come to the right web address to see many of my Mexican meals all brought together in one blog post with plenty of tasty recipe links.
I threw a party for a friend leaving Los Angeles for South Carolina. I gave him a choice from my cheap$kate repertoire of recipes, and he chose tender, slow-cooked, pork Carnitas Tacos. So, where he's going, that makes sense - good Mexican food is few and far between, there. And I have to modestly say that my Carnitas recipe is one of my best.
I also made pinto beans, Mexican rice, calabasitas, plus fresh red chile and green tomatillo salsas. The party and food was a hit. One of my guest, Ellen Bloom, is a talented local blogger and she wrote all about it - just click here.
Carnitas is a one pot meal (plus a frying pan to chrisp it up) of slow-braised pork shoulder cooked in Mexican cola, orange and lemon juice, onion, garlic, with bay leaf and dried oregano. Once the liquid starts to simmer, just walk away for a few hours until the pork is fall-apart tender. Simple to do and so succulent - it's my favorite protein from a taco truck or taqueria. My recipe, with a video, is a click away, here.
Pork shoulder is the cheapest pork, so I use it often. It's especially cheap at Latin markets, like these.
I could have stopped at Carnitas Tacos, but for a party you gotta have some variety, so I added beans and rice.
Put a pot of beans on and the kitchen will draw guest, from the tantalizing smell of my slow cooked beans recipe (click here.) The recipe link is for Black-eyed Peas, but it simple enough to substitute pinto beans; you just need to cook them an hour or two more to fully tenderize. (Black-eyed peas cook quicker than pinto beans.) For a vegetarian bean recipe (that uses red beans, so the cooking time is about the same) read my recipe and watch the video, here.
I finally made a veggie stew called Calabsitas (click here) with squash, corn, onion, zucchini, tomato and Mexican cheese. I went down so well that very little was left over.
It was too much of a delicious party and I had plenty of leftovers. So after a few days of Carnitas Tacos, to change it up, I started making Carnitas Bowls.
I first chop up some tomato, onion and cilantro. I had some extra cheese so i shredded a little bit. I took out some of my homemade Tomatillo Salsa, too.
In a large bowl I added the leftovers that needed microwaving: beans, rice and carnitas. I stored the carnitas with some of the marinade it was cooked in, so the meat stayed moist when heated.
The heated sauce also flavored the Mexican rice - so if you make my Carnitas recipe make sure to reserve plenty of flavorful cooked marinade.
After microwaving, for final assembly, I first added the cheese so it would soften from the heat. Next, I topped the bowl with the chopped tomato, onion and cilantro. And finally I spooned on some salsa.
It was so good. Over the next couple of days, the Carnitas Bowls lost a few ingredients as they were used up. But that's okay, each bowl was unique and all of them were delish.
My Carnitas Bowl is adaptable so make it your own. Add as much of the particular ingredients you like to balance the flavors in your favor.
Do try out my carnitas, beans and rice recipes and throw your own taco party. And make plenty so you can have leftovers to reward yourself with a tasty Carnitas Bowl.
The most flavorful pot of beans you'll ever cook up is featured in the Cheap$kate Chef's latest stop motion animated video recipe.
Call it Southern-style, Low Country, or Soul Food, and by adding a ham hock or a leftover ham bone, you raise a humble pot of beans to a whole other flavor profile. If you are cheap like me then you froze the ham bone from that less-than-a-dollar per pound holiday Shank Half Ham.
And for the upcoming New Year's Day Celebration, my Black-eyed Peas just need some rice to make the Southern traditional Hoppin' Johns. You can cook some rice with the finished Black-eyed Peas (about 20 minutes of simmering, covered) or steam the rice separately and add the Black-eyed Peas when you are ready to celebrate.
You'll be surprised by all the ham you can pull off the bone, after it has simmered in the pot of beans for a couple of hours. Just watch my latest recipe video of Soul Food-Style Black-eyed Peas with Ham to see what I mean.
Cooking with leftover smoked pork is how they do it in the South, heck, I'm sure that's how they do it everywhere. (If you don't have a leftover ham bone or ham hock, it's okay to use a few slices of bacon or any cheap smoked pork or turkey meat, like: neck bones, tail, leg and wing.)
This recipe can be applied to most any type of dried beans: black, white, red, pinto, lima, green pea, lentil, etc. Only the cooking time will vary -- beans like pinto and black beans need 3 to 4 hours, while lentils cook through in half an hour. Make sure to read the package directions for cooking times.
Surprisingly Black-eyed Peas are more expensive than the average legume, over a dollar and a half per pound -- at least in Los Angeles
grocery stores. Maybe they are cheaper in the South? Well, I got mine with a dollar coupon from Ralphs, so my recipe hits all my cheap$kate price points. Even at full price you'll get half a dozen servings, so it's still a tasty budget recipe. I also used an onion, one bay leaf, and some chopped garlic -- all inexpensive ingredients.
My friend, Miss Patti, showed me how to make Cajun-StyleVegetarian Red Beans. So if you are meat averse, then click here to see that video recipe post, so you make Black-eyed Peas your way.
For your next homemade pot of beans on a cold winter day, go with The 99 Cent Chef's smoked pork addition -- you'll drive your household crazy with the tantalizing aroma that comes with slow cooking Soul Food-Style Black-eyed Peas with Ham.
Blackeyed Peas with Ham - VIDEO
Play it here, video runs 2 minutes, 21 seconds.
My YouTube video link for viewing or embedding, justclick here.
Ingredients (about 6 servings)
1 pound dried black-eyed peas
1 leftover ham bone or ham hock - You are going for the smoked pork flavor. Okay to use 4 slices of bacon cut into 1 inch pieces. You can brown the bacon first and add the amount of bacon fat you feel comfortable with. Also, okay to use a small ham steak cut into cubes, or any cheap smoked meat.
1 whole large onion - or 2 small onions, white or yellow.
1 tablespoon chopped garlic - fresh or from jar.
1 stalk celery - optional
8 cups of water - add more if needed during cooking.
Salt and pepper to taste - or any favorite seasoned salt, like Creole Seasoning.
Directions
Check black-eyed peas for pebbles or discolored peas and discard. Rinse off back-eyed peas.
Add black-eyed peas and ham bone, ham hock, or bacon, to a large pot with 8 cups of water.
Chop onion and celery into 1 inch pieces. Add to pot of peas. Season with salt and pepper or Cajun Seasoning.
Bring the pot of peas to a boil, then reduce heat to a low simmer. Cover pot and cook about 2 hours. Check and stir every half hour or so. (Add water should it cook out, for whatever reason.)
Black-eyed Peas should be tender. Remove ham bone or ham hock (no need to take out bacon) and peel off the meat. Add the ham pieces back to the pot, mix well, and low simmer uncovered another half hour.
That's it. Pretty simple to make and you can use this recipe for any of your favorite dried legumes, including: red, white or black beans, pinto, lentils and green peas. Cooking time will vary as some beans need 3 to 4 hours of low simmering. Dried lentils cook the fastest - about 30 minutes.
Hindsight
For vegetarian black-eyed peas, click here for Miss Patti's Red Beans recipe. Basically you're adding chopped veggies like: bell pepper, celery, onions, and green onions. To get a slightly smoky ham hock flavor, try adding half a teaspoon of liquid smoke from a bottle
Loaded with cheese, these 2 stuffed enchiladas, with beans and rice, from El Charrito, are well worth 99.99 cents. If you saw my last disappointing Deal of the Day review (click here), I'm pleased to point out this micowaveable dinner has a lot going for it.
My go-to cheap Mexican frozen dinner is made by Banquet. I've had many of their beef enchiladas and tamale dinners, so I am an expert on mediocre Mexican fare. There are a few problems with Banquet's Mexican meals, though. First off, the refried beans are all mush -- I like a few legume bits to remind what you are eating. Also, the Mexican rice has too much liquid, making more of a rice porrage. And finally, the cheese and beef enchilada filling is quite bland with no ground beef texture. (Now, to be fair, I give props to Banquet for their tasty Salisbury Steak Dinner - read about it here.)
This is not a problem with El Charritos'Cheese Enchilada Dinner. The refried beans have enough whole pinto beans for texture. The Mexican Rice is slightly soggy, but much better than Banquets.
And the main ingredient, the cheese enchiladas, are sprinkled with small pieces of green and red chiles, that give off a slight tingle of chile heat after each bite. It takes real guts to make mass produced Mexican food spicy.
The only slight drawback is the cheese. While flavorful, it is not Mexican in any way -- more like cheddar flavored Cheez Wiz, made to appeal to average American tastes. But on the good side, these enchiladas are fat ones, so you get your moneys' worth.
As with many cheap, frozen, Mexican meals they are loaded with ingredients, too many to read all the way through. So, this is something you don't want to eat too often.
On a scale of 1-9, 9 being best, I give El Charritos' Queso Dinner a solid 7 ! I deducted a couple of points for way too many chemicals and average tasting cheese. But it is definitely a step up from my usual Banquet frozen Mexican dinners.
Now, I could take off a point for false advertising, but I won't -- just compare the package photo at the top of this post and the microwaved plate in photo above! There is no stringy cheese on the beans, and the enchiladas are unrecognizable (and less visually appetizing) under a layer of cheese sauce.
Click on image and begin to read the ingredient list!
I'm going for convenience and taste, for my latest budget recipe -- that brings canned legumes front and center.
It's time to brush away the cobwebs and dust off those tins of beans in the back of the cupboard, and do something with them. Might I suggest a delicious Warm 3 Bean Salad with sauteed onion and tomato, and flavored with tangy vinegar plus luscious olive oil? I think you will be impressed with this simple, quick and satisfying side dish.
You can cook with any favorite beans you have on hand; just drain them and do a quick rinse while you are sauteing some chopped onion and tomato. You can try combinations of black-eyed peas, green beans, black beans, Navy beans, or pinto-- they will meld, but still retain their unique tastes.
I always find cheap cans at the local 99c only Store, and even my chain grocery store carries some for around a dollar or less per can. And, ethnic markets have their own legume specialties on the cheap.
Now, I know canned doesn't compare in flavor, or variety of preparation, to slow cooked dried, or fresh shelled -- but I'm trying to give you working stiffs, with too much overtime on the clock, a break, here.
So give my Warm 3 Bean Salad a try. With all the time you save, you can start another load of laundry, or go visit your friends on Facebook!
Ingredients (about 3 servings)
3 cans of beans (about 15 ounce, each can) - you favorite. I used Red Kidney Bean, Northern Bean (White, Navy or Cannellini,) and Chickpea (Garbonzo.)
1 large tomato - chopped.
1 medium onion - any type, including white, yellow or green onion. I used a red onion.
1 tablespoon of vinegar - I used rice vinegar, but you can use any on hand, including: cider, balsamic or white.
3 tablespoons of oil - one for sauteing, and another at the end, for flavoring.
Handful of chopped herbs - optional
Salt and pepper to taste.
Directions
Open and drain 3 cans of beans. Add all the beans to a strainer and rinse off the rest of the bean sauce. Set aside and allow to finish draining.
In a large pan or pan, over medium heat, add oil and saute onion until soft, about 2-3 minutes. It's just enough time to take out the hot raw taste and introduce some sweet caramelization.
Next add all the beans and chopped tomato. Drizzle on a tablespoon of olive oil (or a favorite tasty oil,) and blend ingredients well. Cook until heated through, about 3 minutes. Finish by mixing in a handful of your favorite chopped herb.
Serve warm (and easy to reheat in the microwave oven,) but okay to chill and serve right from the refrigerator, too.
