I made a batch of this yesterday and it's good enough to blog on. If your biggest pot is only a 12 quart and you are not both Master and Commander, you might want to use only 8 cups of the bean mix. One thing to note is this recipe is very low fat, so if that is not to your tastes I suggest adding some olive oil, butter or pork lard to the beans.

Ingredients:

10 cups (3 bags) Bob's Red Mill 13 Bean Mix
4 cups (1 bag) Bob's Red Mill Pearl Barley
4 cups (one box) Pacific Natural Foods Low-Sodium Organic Free-Range Chicken Broth
3 lb (5 ... or more) organic chicken breasts
1 bottle red table wine (I used Castillo de Fuendejalon 2006 Crianza, a tasty but very dry red you can get for about $6)
6 large dried red peppers (new mexicos or similar)
1 or 2 yellow onions
several cloves of garlic

Spices to taste ... I used cumin, hungarian sweet paprika, ground chipotle powder, yellow mustard powder, brown mustard seed, salt and pepper.

Recipe:

Soaking the beans is recommended but in a pinch you can boil them for a minimum of ten minutes instead. Rinse the beans. Dump them in a really big pot (18 quart if you have one), then add the chicken broth and enough water to fill the pot about half way. Bring the beans to a boil, then turn the heat down to medium. Stir the beans occasionally and add water as needed. At this point you are about three hours from completion.

Fill a large pot (at least two liters), half full of water and put it on high heat. When it gets near boiling, add the dried peppers (I suggest removing any stems), the entire bottle of wine, and the chicken breasts. It is better if you cut up the chicken first, but I am lazy and usually do it after the chicken is cooked. Cook the chicken breasts for around half an hour (less if you cut them up) so they soak up some wine. Once the chicken is cooked, remove it from the pot and set it aside to cool. Retain the water.

Add the pearl barley to the wine+pepper water from the last step and resume boiling for about an hour. Stir the barley occasionally and add water as needed.

While the barley cooks, dice the onions and crush the garlic, then toss them in with the beans. Cut up the chicken breasts if you haven't already, and add them to the beans. Add the heavier spices (paprika, chipotle, mustard seed, etc.)

Once the barley finishes cooking, you will need to pick out what's left of the peppers. Toss the barley and any remaining liquid from the barley pot into the pot with the beans. Add any remaining spices and salt to taste. Depending on your tastes if you used low-sodium broth like I do, you may need to add a fair bit of salt. Stir plenty well. Make sure there is enough water, and simmer at least another ten minutes, or until the beans are done.

Let it cool overnight, then you can spoon about 2 cups each into freezer bags and freeze them.

Makes around 16 servings.