Beans (without the cornbread)

This was a yummy, fairly easy recipe. Initially, I covered the beans with too much water, so I had to scoop some of it out at the end. In the future, I will only cover the beans by about 1 inch instead of 2. I also added a teaspoon of chicken-flavored Better than Bouillon - my mom says that the stuff just makes everything taste better, and it definitely improved the flavor of the beans (which I thought needed a little something extra even after I added the salt and pepper to the mix). I ended up fishing out the bacon once the beans were done. I guess I don't like bacon that isn't crispy, and it just didn't look appetizing to me. I might still use bacon the next time I make this recipe, but maybe I'll just throw in a couple of whole pieces so that they can flavor the beans, but still be easy to remove from the pot once I'm ready to serve them. Once the beans were fully cooked, I added in some chopped up sausage that I had fried up in a skillet and the combination was very good. I served it over rice with sour cream, cheese, chopped onions, and Tabasco sauce. I did serve it with cornbread, but I cheated and used a mix, so I'll have to test out the cornbread recipe another time...