Beans, beans the musical fruit

The Baked Beans turned out really well in the crock pot, and for once, I managed to make beans without making enough to feed a regiment for several days. I still had leftovers, but not so much that we'll be eating beans for weeks to come.

I winged it with the recipe, but it worked out so well, I'm going to try to remember it to post here:

Baked Beans
1 cup pea beans, soaked in water to cover, overnight, then boiled until soft, reserve cooking water
2 tbsp molasses
2 tbsp tomato paste
2 tbsp chili sauce
1 whole chipotle pepper in adobo
1 tsp salt
1/2 cup chopped white onion
reserved bean water, to thin sauce
3 cheese smokies, chopped into bite sized pieces

I put all this together in the crockpot on low, adding enough of the bean water to make sure the sauce was liquid, but not too thin. Since there's not much evaporation with a crockpot, you don't need a very liquid sauce to cook in. Keep the remaining bean water around to add to the pot if the beans are looking dry. Cook on low for 6-8 hours.

You can make this just as well in the oven, but add more liquid and make sure to keep the heat very, very low.

I was going to make chili-cheddar corn bread to go with this, and spicy kale, but since we wound up eating dinner at my sister's far later than we thought we would (it was supposed to be an early dinner/late lunch, but my sister, as usual, couldn't get things together for hours and didn't get dinner on the table until almost 8pm), so we just had a late night bowl of beans as a snack.

It's starting to get colder and wetter out already, and it's already feeling like fall on some days, so I'm going to make the full bean, bread and spicy greens dinner sometime later this month. Then I can post my corn-bread and kale recipes.

Pizza!

Well, I did wind up making the pizza after work last night, at 11:30 at night, tired as hell, but O was, as usual, huuuuuungry, even though I brought home a chicken burger for him. He really enjoyed last night's pizza, asking me what was on it. Here's how I made it this time:

Quick Pizza
1 lb whole wheat pizza dough (bought from the Italian grocery)
1/4 cup Hunt's tomato sauce I use Hunt's because it's easy to find and cheap, use whatever you have in tomato sauce terms
1/2 tsp each fennel seeds, basil and oregano
1/4 large white onion, sliced thin
1/4 large red pepper, chopped
1/2 cup feta cheese, crumbled
1/4 cup ricotta cheese
1 cup mozzarella cheese, grated
parmesan cheese

Preheat oven to 425 degrees. Roll out pizza dough to desired thickeness (1lb will give a thick round pizza, a thinner 11x7 pizza, or two thin pizzas on cookie sheets.) Spread tomato sauce in thin layer, sprinkle on herbs, top with vegetables and cheeses, except parmesan. Bake for 10-15 minutes, top with parmesan cheese.