Process of tonight's dinner!

So I think I'm making chicken tacos with refried beans and Mexican Rice.

So, since we're probably moving in the next month, I wanted to start using up some t

hings that have been lingering in the cupboards and freezer. I started out kno

wing I wanted to use up some leftover pinto beans (for Mexican refried beans) and some chicken drumsticks from the butcher.

Waste Not, Want Not

So about the drumsticks, if you get them fresh from the grocery, you can save some money by getting drumsticks with the skin on still on them.

I got six drumsticks for $2.57 in Illinois. After boiling them, I remove the drumsticks from the water (now broth), and took the skins off while they were still hot.

I put the skins temporarily back into the broth to boil a little longer.

This broth won't be used tonight, and will be frozen for some other time. Homemade broth is great to cook with, so I save it!

The pinto beans were sorted (take out the cracked beans and the stones, if any) and I put two cups of them into the crock pot. I put about two inches of water on top of the beans, and instead of using garlic powder, I put in about 6 whole cloves of garlic.

The photo turned out pretty cool since the garlic floats and then sinks back and forth.

I call it the "Mexican Lava Lamp."

After cooking them overnight, I removed the extra water, took about about half the garlic cloves, lightly salted them, and mashed them with a potato masher. I also added 2 tablespoons of bacon grease, for flavor. Gotta save the bacon grease!

Finally, I decided they were still too moist and runny, so I left the lid off, and stirred occasionally on high (crock pot) heat. In about 30 minutes, they had reached the consistency I wanted.

I then deboned and shredded the chicken, seasoned it with a powdered Mexican pepper, black pepper, and oregano. I set it aside to bake later, just before we eat, so we can make tacos.

The achiote pepper adds a nice color to the chicken.

Now we're basically ready to go, except, I just decided to make Mexican rice with tonight's dinner, in sticking with the theme.

The Mexican Rice, I suppose, is a 'trade secret' that was revealed to me only after I married my wife and made friends with her mother!

Look back tonight for the full dinner!