California Grown Baked Bean Recipe #Sponsored

But, in a Puerto Rican style kinda...

This sponsored newsletter is brought to you in partnership with CALIFORNIA GROWN

Thanks to CA Grown for reaching out and inviting me to be a featured content creator for California Dry Beans for their Why I Love CA GROWN program!

The day that my cookbook, Diasporican: A Puerto Rican Cookbook, was released I took solace and hid in the midst of the oak trees at one of my favorite parks Jack London State Historic Park. I visited Jack London’s cottage, wandered the ranch, read some ephemera, and did some writing in the quiet. Despite the body I posses, I love to be out in nature and to hike. Something I can do almost year round in California.

One of my resolutions was to be able to partner with California State Parks in 2023 to show y’all the true beauty of Northern California and why so much of it inspired (and inspires) me. Getting to collaborate with CA Grown is definitely still in the wheelhouse, wouldn’t you agree?

California grows just over 50% of the nation’s produce. California agriculture has been a big part of my family’s life, from the time when they worked in the fields, to Mami working at Blue Diamond.

Mami was a sorter at Blue Diamond, known as Almond Growers at the time. She stood on the line, processed and sorted through the warm and naked almonds for their shape and quality. I’ve long known how to identity an almond tree by its leaves and am still amazing by how almonds are harvested; the arms of a machine grab the tree trunk and enthusiastically shakes the crap out of the tree. The almonds falls to the ground onto a drop cloth.

Many of you have come virtually come along with me and Mami as we traipse through the idyllic backroads of Northern California to soak in its beauty, the seasonal landscape and the seasonal produce!

Being able to cook with the most sustainable, humanely raised and confinement-free meat. And some of the world’s most beautiful produce, some of which we may have been able to pick for ourselves.

Even if we can’t get on the road and travel the 12-40 miles to access these things. We can (and have) travel 3 miles via one bus that will pick us up a few blocks from Mami’s house and take us directly to the weekly farmer’s market! There we can access some of the same meats, eggs and produce within a community considered to be a food desert (I think there’s new terminology for this now, someone let me know).

I have cooked meals with ingredients that were harvested within 24 hours. I honestly can’t think of anything more inspiring.

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Beans have always been apart of my diet because they’re an essential gastronomic component to Puerto Rican culture, albeit a limited variety of beans are used in the cuisine. Luckily, California is a major supplier of dry beans. With the large lima being the only one exclusive to California. Beans are grown all over California: Kern, Tulare and Fresno counties, the Delta and the Sacramento Valley, along the coast near Santa Maria and near Encinitas in San Diego County. Black eyes and garbanzos in The San Joaquin Valley. Kidney and yellow varieties in the Sacramento Valley. Limas along the coast.

And I love baked beans, but working on this recipe made me realize how much sugar might be in the canned baked beans I grew up eating. It’s not hard for beans to take center stage and yet so few people put them there. These year round vegetables are incredibly universal, filling and packed full of protein. Pairing them with rice makes them one of the vegetarian dishes that is a complete protein containing all nine essential amino acids.

Pinquitos beans are tiny, condensed (they remain firm even after a long cook), and create this intense and dark broth. So, if you read a recipe that tells you to drain the water, only to replenish with fresh water, they’ve obviously have never encountered a pinquito. It’s a bean that is an essential part of California cuisine, a bean that was originally brought from Mexico and now widely grown in the California Central Coast, but became Santa Maria tri-tip’s quintessential companion.

I tried to create a baked bean dish that had enough balance of sweetness, but bold flavor. And of course I couldn’t leave the sofrito and the adobo out.

You could also use King City Pink Beans (my favorite) in this recipe if the flavor of Pinquito is too strong for you. Some people complain about the smell of Pinquito beans when cooked. King City Pinks are named after King City, California, a little town near Salinas. The beans were mentioned by John Steinbeck in his novel, Tortilla Flat. They helped put King City, California on the map in the 1930s.

King City and Pinquito should never be substituted for one another lightly, they’re not really the same.

Puerto Rican Style Baked Beans

Serves 4-6

1 cup dry pinquito beans

3 cups water

1 medium yellow onion, roughly chopped

3 cloves garlic, minced

1 small green bell pepper, roughly chopped

1/2 bunch cilantro

2 small Roma tomatoes, roughly chopped

1 - 8 ounce can of tomato sauce

1 Tablespoon white vinegar

1/2 cup dark brown sugar

1 teaspoon ancho chile powder

Salt and Pepper, to taste

Rinse and sort beans, ensuring you remove any suspect looking beans or rocks. Place beans, onion, garlic, bell pepper, cilantro, and tomatoes in a large pot and completely cover beans with cold water. Should take 3 cups. Simmer for 2 hours or until beans are soft and tender. You may have to keep adding water to the pot as the liquid reduces. There should always be enough water so that the beans aren’t crowded.

Add tomato sauce, vinegar, brown sugar, and chile power. Simmer for another 1 hour, or until beans are tender and to your liking.

The mixture should be thick and clinging to the beans. If the mixture is still loose, increase the heat to medium high, keeping an eye on it, until the sauce has reduced.

Serve with this tri-tip recipe!

NOTE: If you’re not a fan of green bell pepper, like me, you can add the onion, garlic, bell pepper, cilantro and tomato in a blender. I promise you won’t taste the bell pepper when the dish is finished. But, this is your sofrito…which makes it Puerto Rican!