culinary experiment: beans, greens, & eggs

January 28, 2022

The other day I made pulled pork on my smoker. I thought I would give pit beans a try. After seven plus hours cooking, they still weren’t done. I brought them in and cooked them on the stovetop for another forty-five minutes. They still weren’t great. So this experiment is not about those. I’ll keep working on that and report back later.

Despite the failure of my pit beans, I couldn’t give up. After all, I had a lot of left over beans. The beans were originally made with bacon, onions, garlic, tomato paste, mustard, molasses, and paprika. They were very smoky. In a pan with a tablespoon of oil, I reheated them slowly, adding ketchup and mustard to give them a little more liquid and flavor.

While the beans were heating up, I sliced up some swiss chard. I mixed it in with the warm beans and covered it. I cooked for ten minutes until the chard was starting to wilt. Once the greens were cooked, I raised the heat and cracked four eggs on top. Then I sprinkled on some shredded cheese and put it under the broiler until the whites were set and the cheese lightly brown. I served it with bread and butter.

The end result was delicious. The beans were much better than the first time, and the greens were a nice balancing addition. Of course, the eggs were the crowning jewel. Now most people probably don’t have a bunch of leftover beans sitting around, but you can make this using canned baked beans and I think it will still be good. You could also use spinach or kale instead of swiss chard. It would be a great way to use up all that kale that comes in farm shares. I can think of so many variations on this, but the base recipe of beans, greens, & eggs is a great starting point for an awesome meal, breakfast, lunch, or dinner.