The Organic Dish provides easy and delicious, fresh, natural and organic "make-your-own" meals and dinner kits for vegetarians and omnivores in Boulder, Colorado.

This is my aunt Kim’s recipe and is total comfort food from my youth.  It’s simple, delicious, nourishing, and hearty.  We used to eat the beans in a bowl and slather the butter on the fried bread.  The bread makes this dish amazing.  She always fried the bread in olive oil at a low heat (below smoking point).  On our gas stove, the burner was at ~5 (out of 10).

Pinto Beans, Fried Bread and Fried Eggs

Serves 4-5.

• dry pinto beans 2 cups
• canned tomato sauce 1 1/2 cup (1 15 ounce can)
• 1 medium onion
• lots o’ water (around 4x as much as the beans, so ~8 cups) – add more water if you like your beans “soupier”
• 2 Tbsp bacon fat (c’mon – you don’t save this in a jar by the stove?) or ~ 6 ounces (1/2 pack) sliced uncooked bacon

Throw all of the ingredients into a crockpot and cook on low for 8 hours.

Fried Bread (we throw this into a bread maker and hit the dough setting – otherwise just mix it all together and let rise for about an hour):

• warm water ~3/4 cup
• sea salt – 1 teaspoon
• sugar – 1 Tbsp.
• yeast – 1 teaspoon
• bread flour – 2 cups
• olive oil for frying
• butter to spread on the bread after it’s fried

In a small skillet (preferable a 10″ cast iron or stainless steel) heat the olive oil.  The olive oil should be ~  3/4 inch thick in the pan.  Make little “rolls” out of the bread and then flatten them out before dropping into the oil (looks like thick flat bread or naan).  Bring the olive oil to a medium heat (make sure that it is not smoking).  Drop in the bread when the oil is hot.  Fry for around 2 minutes on each side or until golden brown.

Drain oil off and set on paper towels or newspaper.  Slather in butter (the most important part!) and serve with beans.  The next morning eat it with fried eggs, fresh tomato, and avocado.  Guten Appetit!

Beckie 303-736-9930 xt 1       twitter.com/TheOrganicDish