John Maddens Mess Recipes

Steps:

• Rinse and pick over beans; place in a medium-sized bowl and cover with water; let soak overnight.
• The next day, drain beans and place in a medium-size saucepan and add one quart of water.
• Bring to a boil over high heat, lower heat, cover; let simmer until beans are tender, 60 to 90 minutes.
• Meanwhile, cook bacon in a Dutch oven or large skillet until crisp; remove with slotted spoon onto paper towels to drain.
• Pour off all but two tablespoons of the bacon fat; saute ground beef, large onion and garlic in bacon fat over high heat for about 5 minutes, stirring often.
• Add cooked bacon, undrained tomatoes, chili powder, salt, oregano and cayenne; stir well and bring to a boil.
• Lower heat, cover, and simmer for about 60 minutes, stirring every so often; steal some liquid from the beans and stir it in if mixture gets too thick.
• Now would be a good time to cook that spaghetti.
• Drain beans, add to meat/tomato mixture, and heat just to serving temperature.
• To serve, place hot drained spaghetti on a large platter and spoon all the chili on top.
• Cut tamales into pieces and arrange over chili.
• Finally, scatter raw onion and dried red peppers over top, and serve.

Steps:

• Brown the beef in a large skillet over medium heat; add the chopped onion, green pepper and garlic. Cook until the onion is transparent; drain.
• Add the tomatoes and chilies, the taco seasoning mix and velveeta cheese. Continue cooking until the cheese is melted.
• Stir well. Serve as desired, using suggestions above or other ideas.

Steps:

• Combine flour, pepper and salt. Dredge beef cubes well on all sides with flour mixture. Reserve remaining flour for thicker gravy.
• Brown meat in oil in large Dutch oven, working in batches if necessary. Remove meat. Saute onion, green peppers, celery, garlic in pan drippings for 10 minutes. Add carrots, potatoes, turnips, rutabaga, broth, red pepper seasoning, marjoram and parsley.
• Bring to a boil. Add meat.
• Cover; simmer 1 1/2 hours until meat is tender, adding more broth if mixture becomes too dry. For a thicker gravy, mix together 1/4 cup cold water and reserved flour mixture in small bowl and make a smooth paste. Remove meat and vegetables with a slotted spoon into serving bowl.
• Stir flour mixture into pan liquids. Cook over medium heat, stirring constantly until mixture is thick and bubbly.
• Pour over meat and vegetables.
• Serve with a crusty French bread.

Steps:

• In a large saucepan or small soup pot, brown onions in butter until tender.
• Add all other ingredients including cooked and shredded beef.
• Cover and cook over low heat for at least 2 hours, uncovering for the last 1/2 hour or so; or in a crock pot on low heat for 6 to 8 hours.
• (I can't vouch for the crock pot method, but stovetop works just fine!).
• Serve on buns or rolls.