Leslee’s Beans and Cornbread

This was the first time I have ever cooked with dry beans before so it was a bit of an adventure.  I decided to use the crockpot so that I didn’t have to watch a simmering pot.  This made it easier and I just put the rinsed beans, water and some spices in and turned it on low for about 8 hours.  I had to add water a few times through out the day and was surprised by how much was absorbed.  I halved the recipe and probably ended up adding a total of about 8 cups of water for the 2 cups of beans. 

The cornbread was easy to make and Summy enjoyed helping me.  I used a medium ground corn meal and some different flour to make it gluten free.  I don’t have a skillet so I covered the rubber handle of my frying pan in tin foil (a trick I learned from Rachel Ray!) and popped that into the oven.  I should mention that I added 1/4 cup of sugar to the recipe because my mom had said it was not sweet at all and when I tasted a little of the batter it wasn’t all that good.  I am sure the sugar made a big difference although it wasn’t super sweet.  I really like the cornbread with a little melted butter on it…DELICIOUS! Next time I would use a finely ground corn meal because the medium effected the texture.  I thought the beans were pretty good too although I had to add a lot of seasoning to make them more flavorful.  This is probably just how it is with beans.  Maybe I added too much water though…any suggestions? Next time I will probably add some of the topping she suggests, that would be good. 

All in all it was a delicious meal that I enjoyed by myself since Sean was not home for dinner and the kids are quite picky.  I packed some for his lunch tomorrow so I will see how he likes it!  Halving the batch made quite a bit so that is something to think about when you try it.