I have made cowboy beans before. I don't go with recipes. If you are interested, you can give this idea a try for fun.

Instead of normal beans, I use raw peanuts.

I find it interesting that people mostly think of peanuts as "nuts", but peanuts in fact are beans.

Nice flavor. Peanut is the only bean which does not taste like a bean.

dcarch

Dcarch, that sounds good! But there are allergies amongst the group, so I can't do it.

I knew, of course, that peanuts were legumes, but when you said bean, I got confused and looked it up. I had always thought that they were root things since they grow underground, but I learned that that they start in the air on a part that is then thrust underground, which is way cool. ;) Thanks for the inspiration.

I'm thinking mustard and molassas as base flavors?

Sounds really good, Eileen! I live rather South of Santa Maria, but my mother grew up in Ventura County, and I grew up with tritip barbecue. Still, Mother made the sweet beans with salt pork. :) OTOH, I think the housekeeper who taught her to make American food like fried chicken, when she was a kid, was from Texas. ;) It's not the Cowboy beans I was thinking of, but it sounds good (if I think thyme instead of cilantro as I'm have the cilantro averse genes), and I love that it isn't sugary. Thank-you so much!

Google Calico Beans. Taste of Home has many recipes to inspire you. I use a recipe that has 1 lb. hamburger and 5 slices of bacon diced browned.

I think cilantro would make it too Mexican-like and would omit it. Maybe the tomatoes too.

Here's a recipe for Cowboy Beans from Texas, which looks reasonable, but I've never made cowboy beans. I think I would reduce the water, however.

So, since I haven't heard a preference from the hosts, and given that I like Eileen's Santa Maria beans recipe better than any I've read for Cowboy/Calico beans, I'm planning to use it as a jumping off point to kind of do my own thing. I will make it as actual Santa Maria beans (thank-you, Eileen!). In the future, but for what I need for the pot luck, it's a good framework to riff off of. I was looking at the prices of ”cheap” cuts of beef with horror. I have some ground in the freezer, but if I'm lucky there's a small slab of chuck. I want to braise it today on slow in the multicooker, if so. I like stringy better than ground for this kind of thing. From the farm, a more reasonable price for the same quality, it wouldn't arrive until late tomorrow, which would mean cooking overnight, Sigh.

I'm toying with the idea of sweetening/thickening with fresh or roasted pumpkin, but I'm not sure I want to bother with testers and I don't want to scree it up for company. I'm going to dial back the heat for the old folks. I have fresh peppers, not canned. Some roasted red Anaheims, I think, as well as raw, and some jalapeños, and a few poblanos. I can just add to taste, I think. I'll be making a quadruple batch, I think..,

Sigh. What I'd thought was a slab of chuck was corned beef. Ground beef it is. Easier, anyway, since it doesn't have to be braised, and I had double what I need of ground in the freezer. Out if beef stock, but I have interesting chicken concoctions.

Mixed beans, by weight, one quarter pinto, one quarter myacoba, one quarter floor sweepings (i.e., mixed bag of beans, inc. lentilsj and one quarter vaquero beans, because hey, it started out as cowboy beans, right? All doing a quick soak.

Well I have a version that I made up for our annual pig roast. It is very popular but I do not believe it is anywhere near "traditional". I used to use dry beans but now I short cut it and used canned.

Cowboy BBQ Beans

1 lb. bacon, diced and cooked until crisp

1 large sweet onion, diced

1 tbs. ground coriander

2 tsp. garlic powder

1 15.5 oz. can Butter Beans (I use Goya)

2 15.5 oz. can Black Beans (I use Goya)

1 15.5 oz. can Pink Beans (I use Goya)

2 15.5 oz. can Pinto Beans (I use Goya)

½ bottle or to taste BBQ Sauce

1 can Rotel Original Tomatoes with Green Chili’s

1 can of Oatmeal Coffee Stout beer

Maple Syrup to taste

Fry the bacon until crisp. Drain on paper towels.

Saute the onion in the bacon fat until soft and just starting to brown. Drain on paper towels.

Drain and rinse all the beans.

Combine all the ingredients in a baking dish and stir to mix.

Bake covered in a 250 degree oven for 1 hour, remove cover and bake another hour.

Remove from oven, cool and refrigerate.

To reheat, cover and bake in 250 degree oven for a 2 hours.

Cowboy beans are anything you want them to be....like "Old fashuoned apple pie" or Mother's favorite vegetable soup".

Make a recipe that tastes good to you, call them cowboy beans and everyone is happy, but for the people who dont' like that kind of beans.

Linda, my issue was finding a recipe I liked to start with. Eileen's Santa Maria recipe isn't just right for this crowd—too spicy—but along the lines of what I wanted to cook. I'm tweaking it to suit, and it'll be something else, and if it doesn't end up tasting like cowboy beans, I'll just change the name.

I went looking for a less spicy Santa Maria recipe because I don't remember them being spicy. The beef broth and ground beef seemed to be what set them apart from chili or baked beans. But I found my recipe online! The person said she found the recipe in a newspaper and it must've been the Santa Maria Times as it's all I would've read while I lived there.

So she calls them ranch beans. Maybe searching on that term will get you some ideas.

https://www.food.com/recipe/santa-maria-ranch-style-beans-506544

Thanks, Eileen! I'm just planning to use some roasted red Anaheims (very mild) and cut out the chili powder. The price of tomatos was scary! So I'm using canned fire roasted. And if it needs something to replace the chili power, I can use cumin and smoked Spanish paprika. Bringing the barbecue. ;) The beans are all cooked, though I stopped before totally squishy, since they'll be cooked again, tomorrow. I'm trying to decide whether to make the goop totally first, boil all the beans together, the combine, or start the combined beans with aromatics, and slowly build up vegetables finishing with the acidic ones. Still on the fence about pumpkin, too....

Doesn't look like much, huh? The tomatoes were absolutely necessary. It tasted great without them, but looked like pale mud. :)

Cowboy Beans Santa Maria from Eileen

INGREDIENTS

1/2 lb pinto beans
1/2 lb mayocoba beans
1/2 lb vaquero beans
1/2 lb mixed beans and lentils
6 cups bean water or stock
2 lb ground beef
4 onion, chopped
1/2 head garlic, minced
1 28 oz can fire roasted tomatoes, diced
1 28 oz can whole fire roasted tomatoes
4 roasted to char, fresh red Anaheim chiles, diced
2 TBSP+ fresh thyme
+/- 4 TBSP chopped fresh oregano

1 1/2 tbsp combined smoked Spanish paprika and cumin
2 tsp salt

Added about a tbsp Coleman's mustard powder and a couple tbsps garlic honey. Omitted the fresh tomatoes. Eyeballed the spices, generously. Added no plain water or stock to the final pot, used about 6.5 qt. bean water. The broth is thin, and could have used the pumpkin for thickening, but it tasted so good I decided not to mess with it. About 8 quarts.

The recipe looks like you've achieved a smoky version, which sounds great!

The only dried beans I cook are pinto beans for refried beans. Sometimes I don't have chicken stock on hand and use water. The beans are much better when I use stock.