Georgia's Pinto Beans: Our 500th Recipe!

These beans are very simple but absolutely delicious. Georgia made them for our knitter's group and all of those very experienced cooks were impressed and asking for her recipe.

Georgia served the beans with the following side dishes: Cornbread (I'll post her recipe tomorrow); chopped sweet onions; a plateful of whole green chiles, peeled and seeded; grated cheese; and salsa.

4 cups of pinto beans

Water

Hickory smoked bacon

Salt

Pick over the beans, rinse them well, cover with cold water and soak for 8 hours or overnight. Or, you may clean them, bring them to a boil with water to cover, boil rapidly for one minute, remove from heat, cover and let stand for an hour. Then drain.

Cut up 4 to 6 slices of bacon and place it in the bottom of a crock pot. Add soaked and drained beans. Cover all with cold water and cook in a covered crockpot on medium heat overnight or for 8 hours. Taste the beans and add salt if needed.