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Bean hole pinto beans
This is a method that can be used for a number of dishes. It will turn your Dutch oven into a pressure cooker at first and as the time goes on, into a slow cooker. I have used it to cook a number of things, most notable, beans and pot roast.
From what I understand, this is a native American method where they used earthen clay pots and was adapted by early European settlers using cast iron. The basic concept is to dig a hole, built large fire and when down to coals, add pot and bury. Let set between 3 and 16 hours.
Not that I have experienced it personally, but IIRC this is a method used for New England baked beans
I used pintos soaked overnight.
For a 12 inch DO, dig hole about 2 feet deep and 2 feet across. It will depend on the size of your DO, jut leave room on sides for coals.
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Start large fire in hole
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Prepare food in DO. In this case, as I said, we used pintos with dice onions and a mix of Tex-Mex spices. This is less about the recipe, and more about method. Use whatever recipe for beans that you have.
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When fire has burn down to coals, and the hole is about half filled
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Shovel out a little more than half the coals
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Place pot in hole ans level as possible.
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Place coals back in hole making sure to get the sides filled in and a good layer on top, then fill in will all the dirt for the hole. you should end up with a mound.
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Let sit for about 8 hours. This pot was in the hole for about 7.5 hours. Carefully dig out of hole, things will be hot. Try to keep the dirt out of the pot
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While you build a large fire in the beginning, over all you will use only a fraction of the wood you would need to cook them in a normal method. The earth heats up while the fire is going and when all is buried, the thermal retention cooks everything.
Hope yall give this a try. Let us know how it turns out of you. Good luck.
