Cowboy Calico Beans

 Bob and I are trying something a bit different this month. I found a menu template and I sat down and figured out 31 main dishes for dinner. I filled it in with all sorts of different ideas. I put in everything from Cod Mappas to breakfast for dinner. I let Bob choose what he wants for dinner the following day.

He chose Cowboy Calico Beans.

I've made this recipe multiple times since we moved out here into the country. It's become a favorite.

All good recipes, in my opinion, start out with a chopped onion. This was no exception.

I used 1/2 of a green bell and 1/2 of a red bell. Color is a great thing in recipes as you eat with your eyes first.

This recipe contains four different types of beans. I ordered a case of butter beans from Amazon so that I could have them on hand. That's how much we like this recipe. Butter beans are hard to find here locally.

Everything cooks together, slowly, for 45 minutes to an hour.

This is a perfect ending to a cool and blustery day.


Cowboy Calico Beans

1 pound lean ground beef
1 medium onion, chopped
1 bell pepper, chopped
1/4 cup ketchup
3 tablespoons apple cider vinegar
2 tablespoons yellow prepared mustard
1 15-oz. can butter beans, drained and rinsed
1 15-oz. can pinto beans, drained and rinsed
1 15-oz. can lima beans, drained and rinsed
1 15-oz. can pork and beans

Cook beef with onion and bell peppers until cooked through and no pink remains. Drain. Add to a large pot with all the other ingredients. Cook, covered, over low heat for 45-60 minutes until everything has melded together. Make sure to stir every now and then to stop from sticking to the bottom of the pan.

**You can also add all the ingredients to a slow cooker and cook on low temperature 8 or so hours.

Beginning of July Garden Update

<Cranberry beans
Arapaho Fish Hill beans>

Arapaho Fish Hill beans

The peas are about at the end of the road.

Blooming Prairie beans on the top tier, Dragon Tongue beans on the middle tier.

Purple Podded Pole beans

Jerusalem artichokes

French lavender

Flood Pole beans

Tall Trailing nasturtium

Golden Nugget cherry tomatoes

Jimmy Nardello sweet pepper

Black Beauty eggplant

I always heard the saying "knee high by the 4th of July". I wonder if waist high is even better?

Golden Delicious apple tree...and a mess that desperately needs to be cleaned up.

Fuji apple tree

Top row is Snow Princess calendula, middle row is Bright Lights cosmos and on the bottom are Love in a Mist.

The grapes should be back with a vengeance by next summer.

Purple Emporer nasturtium

Oregon Spring tomato

The closest is a Blue Beauty and the one further away is a Paul Robeson.

A pathetic yellow summer squash.

Holy spaghetti squash!

These potatoes leaves are dying back so we'll harvest these in the next few days.

Yard Long beans in both red and green.

We're letting that bag of potatoes dry out until tomorrow and we'll see what we got in there.

Peppermint stick zinnia in the front and gorgeous looking collard greens in the back.

Maxibel and Tanya's Pink Pod bush beans. These are going to be absolutely loaded!

The backside of the spaghetti squash bed. That lettuce has seen better days, for sure!

The onions are getting big.

More baby spaghetti squash on the backside of the bed.

Pink Plume celery and Longue Rouge Sang carrots

Sword lettuce and cilantro that is going to seed. I planted garlic where the bok choy was.

Mixed Bachelor Button flowers. I read somewhere that these are edible. I don't eat them. I just like them.

Golden beets

Chioggia beets

This is either white or pink Japanese dandelions. I'll have to wait until they bloom to find out which pot is which.

Jibai Shimoshirazu cucumber plant

The walkway to the back garden.

The side garden...this is where I put a lot of the things that I want to climb the fence.

Blooming Prairie "bush" beans. I love the coloring on these.

Egyptian Walking Onions

Garden sage. This got a bit of a sunburn.

Cucamelon plant. I'm not sure if I'll get anything off of these or not.

Strawberry spinach. I grew this last year and we enjoyed it.

In the bed: Lacinato kale, Drunk Woman Frizzy Head lettuce, Parisienne carrots and fenugreek. In the pots below are basil (Thai, if I remember correctly) and lemongrass.

The rhubarb was traumatized when the bottom fell out of the bed. It's starting to come back.

Chioggia beets. In one pot, I planted echinacea and in the other I planted dill. I'm seeing how both companion plant with the beets.

I'm very proud of this spaghetti squash!

Nasturtiums!

Giant Italian parsley

Casper eggplant. This little guy has been through a lot and I'm quite surprised that it's still growing.

Sunburn tomatoes.

Gold Nugget cherry tomatoes

The Spring Blush peas that I'm saving for seed. I can't find anywhere to buy them, so I grew them out to save seed.