Three Sisters' Fry Bread

Total Time: 20 mins Preparation Time: 10 mins Cook Time: 10 mins

Ingredients

• 1 cup flour
• 1 cup cornmeal
• 1 tablespoon fresh sage (fresh sage finely minced) or 1 teaspoon dried sage
• 1 teaspoon baking powder
• 1/2 teaspoon salt (my addition)
• 1 cup pinto beans, cooked and mashed
• 1 cup butternut squash, roasted, cooked and mashed
• warm water, as needed
• oil, for frying

Recipe

• 1 in mixing bowl combine flour, cornmeal, sage, baking powder and salt. mix.
• 2 stir in the pinto beans and squash. (i pureed the beans and the squash in a mini food processor using a small amount of the bean cooking liquid to help it blend.).
• 3 add a little warm water (for the test recipe i only used a few tablespoons of water) as needed to make a soft but not sticky dough.
• 4 in a skillet (i used our faithful 10" lodge cast iron skillet), add some oil and heat the skillet to medium heat.
• 5 on a floured work surface, divide the dough into 6-8 pieces (or 12-16 for mini fry bread). flatten to form patties (a tortilla press lined with wax paper worked well for this step). i found it better to flatten the dough to a thinner 1/4" thickness. they cooked better and crispier than the thicker ones and were cooked all the way through.
• 6 in the hot cast iron skillet, carefully add the flattened dough pieces in batches; do not crowd.
• 7 fry bread pieces 3-5 minutes on each side until golden brown.
• 8 drain on paper towels and serve hot.