The bean thing

[xpc]

I am a single middle age male, one dog. Had a dozen chickens but a fortnight or so ago they went to the great broaster in the sky, whatever ate them only left feathers.

Anyways I am going to start on my 100% self sufficient retirement cabin hopefully soon, and am in a quagmire on what foods to store. Everybody seems to be talking about storing dried beans, what the heck do you do with a dry bean? I've had a few forks of pork & beans over the last 4+ decades but not much. I bought four cans 2 years ago and still have 3 left.

Re-fried beans, never touch them (dog neither) end of that story. My mother only made the finest meat chili known to man, never had to stretch it with a pile of dull thud even with 8 at the table. We ate and enjoyed plenty of green beans, string beans, wax beans, cooked or fresh off the vine. I eat every typical vegetable grown in the USA - but not lima, navy, garbozo (too weird of name to even consider eating) or any other kidney shaped bean with the pus texture.

So now I ask what do you do with beans to make them palatable? how do you present them? mix with? etc. I guess I would learn to eat them like skittles when hungry enough but do I really need a dried june bug scab stored for ten years?

As it is now I only shop maybe 6 times a year and during the infamous ice storm of 2009 fared better than most because I always have a few months of food handy but no beans.

Thanks for any enlightenment

 

[Ldychef2k]

If you are that fussy, why even consider it? But if you are up for a challenge, and haven't tried to cook your own dried beans, they are NOTHING like the canned varieties. Dry beans are awesome, and awesome FOR you.

If you still want to store beans, the key is to store a good variety. They have individual characteristics in flavor and cooking time especially. Don't limit yourself to chili, and you will be amazed at what is out there.

For the rest of this post, I am going to pretend I didn't read what you like and don't like, and just advocate for beans !!!


I am a big fan of black beans. http://find.myrecipes.com/recipes/recipefinder.dyn?action=displayRecipe&recipe_id=1062806
is my favorite summer recipe using them. I also love refried black beans. There is no comparison to pintos.

Any bean, including my personal favorite the dried lima, does real well slow cooked on the stove with a ham hock. Throw a cornbread and some greens on the table, and there's nothing better.

My daughter loves 15 bean soup, which is available as a dried bean mix commercially, or you can throw together your own.

Cooked lentils can be mixed with minced veggies, eggs and oats and seasonings to make a passable loaf.

Grind up pinto beans into a flour texture, mix with your favorite Mexican seasonings and put in vacuum sealed bags, ready to add boiling water and make "instant" refried beans.

While you are grinding, take some garbanzo beans, garlic, olive oil and sesame paste (tahini) and fix a big bowl of hummus, ready for dipping chips or veggies.

Split pea soup can be made from stored split peas, dehydrated carrots and onions.

I make my own MREs, "just in case" I precook and then dehydrate beans, either whole or refried, then mix them with home dehydrated veggies, rice or pasta, and seasonings, toss a cup or two into a vacuum seal bag, and "walla", a ten minute boil and you've got dinner.

If that's not enough, here are a few excellent links to bean recipes you never even thought existed !

And hey, have a ball.

http://www.beanbible.com/

http://food.yahoo.com/search?tp=recipe&in=beans&p=

http://southernfood.about.com/library/recipes/blpage7.htm

http://beanrecipes.org/

http://www.eatingwell.com/recipes/collections/healthy_bean_recipes.html

http://vegweb.com/index.php?board=138.0




Dang typo.

 

[xpc]

I guess I am a self loathing bean hater for no other reason but that I never ate them much before. I looked at all the links, the one in the first recipe as well as one in the last link looked real good and saved them to try later - but those are from canned beans and such, how do you reconstitute dried beans?

Thanks for the recipe links and I promise to try a few while waiting to build my cabin, I usually try to add chicken or pork but know that will not always be possible and from the looks of a few of those dishes black beans may just be the answer.

I also have a vacuum sealer and dehydrator and make MRE's of sorts in volume then when lazy heat as needed.

thanks again

 

[freemotion]

I was also a bean hater most of my life. My mother made beans all the time and I never developed a taste for them. She is a GREAT cook, so it was not her cooking!

My SIL is part Puerto Rican, and was learning some of the traditional recipes from her PR grandmother, which included lots of black beans. I liked everything I ate at her house, so I began to re-think beans.

I only buy black beans, though. I do make a mixed bean soup for dh, but I still don't like it. He loves it, so I can up some quarts for him for those times when we are having in-house "take-out!"

My favorite is bean paste, which is a dip kind of like re-fried beans but without the fat. I am not opposed to lard (pork fat rules!) but I like the bean paste better. You just cook up some beans with onions and garlic and mash 'em up and serve in burritoes or with nachos as a dip. We had some for supper tonight with tortilla chips with melted cheddar, salsa all from the garden, and strained goat kefir flavored with garden herbs....I usually use sour cream, but recently discovered that strained kefir is a perfect substitute.

Here is what I did...I always double or triple this, but I will give you the one-bag version:

You will need....

One pound of dry black beans
One medium onion
2-3...or 5 or 9......cloves of garlic

Pick through the beans to sort out any debris or small pebbles. Soak the beans for 12 to 24 hours in a gallon of filtered water to which you have added a glug of whey or lemon juice or apple cider vinegar. This will make the beans much more digestible. Don't use the "quick soak" method that will likely be listed on the intructions on the bag.

Rinse the beans, and put in a crock pot on low overnight with enough water to cover by at least a half inch. Add the diced onion and garlic. NO SALT yet!

In the morning, drain any excess liquid, reserving a cup or two just in case. Run the beans and onions/garlic through a food processor or mash with a potato masher, as smooth or as chunky as you like. Add some of the reserved liquid to get a consistancy that you will like. Think dip.

That's it! Simple, simple, simple.....and cheap! And nutritious!

Serve it as a dip by itself, with grated cheese on top, hot, in burritoes or tacos, with nachos, etc. Include anything you like to go with these items....diced tomatoes, salsa, sour cream, guacamole, cooked sausage, etc.

You can freeze or refrigerate leftovers. I ferment it for longer storage in the fridge and a slight sour flavor that I like, and increasing the nutrient density and the digestibility....no acid reflux after a meal with fermented foods. You can ferment the salsa, too. If this intrigues you, check out the thread on fermenting.

 

[Ldychef2k]

How do you reconstitute dried beans?

Thanks for the recipe links and I promise to try a few while waiting to build my cabin, I usually try to add chicken or pork but know that will not always be possible and from the looks of a few of those dishes black beans may just be the answer.

I also have a vacuum sealer and dehydrator and make MRE's of sorts in volume then when lazy heat as needed.

thanks again

No problem, hope I helped.

I reconstitute them by soaking overnight, draining, and then cooking for a couple of hours, depending on the size of the bean. Then I cool them and I freeze them in portions. Now that I have a pressure canner, I will be canning pints of them as well. With just one person, quarts are a little overwhelming in a lot of ways !

Have you tried textured vegetable protein (TVP)? It comes in pork, chicken, beef, bacon and sausage. It's pretty good, and a lot cheaper than real meat...and it keeps for years.

I have been working the past few months to get at least one year's meals for me, my daughter and her family, and my parents, who are quite elderly. Been practicing on them with bean recipes, and so far they have been winners.

Hope you give a couple of those recipes a try.

Kris

 

[xpc]

Freemotion, I live in the country and seldom go to town but am not that far I couldn't make an unscheduled stop at the grocers for some canned and dried black beans for testing purposes only mind you. I do have a small crock pot and though they don't use a lot of power it is more than I'd like to use when running on pure solar cells.

And Ldychef let me get past the bean phobia before throwing textured vegetable protein at me. I accidentally ate tofu soup at a Chinese restaurant thinking it was chicken chunks and almost lost it all over my table mate.

 

[Ldychef2k]

Sorry, but I am laughing at that image!

The tough thing about trying to get a single man to try some wierd food over a long distance is that you can't sneak it in the cooking.

 

[xpc]

The tofu came as a total surprise while doing a job outside of LA, it was back when bean curd was never heard of in Wisconsin and didn't give it a second thought when I put the chew to it. BTW why do you girls always want to convert us happy people?

Where do you get your TVP from? (website). The nearest town to me that may have it is Memphis and would not consider the 5 hour round trip for a bean bag. I have read quite a bit on it in the last hour and it seems to have come quite a ways since eating tofu 20 years ago.

p.s. I like the area you are in and spent a lot of time working between Fresno and Frisco.

 

[Ldychef2k]

Yeah, it's good here. Hot, but good...

I get plain TVP at a local bulk grocery store. (Local as in two blocks away.) The flavored stuff, well, I get all of my 20 year plus storage cans from Honeyville. Here's the TVP. And to correct my error, I said bacon and meant ham.

http://store.honeyvillegrain.com/search.aspx?find=tvp

I'm not a huge fan of firm tofu, but I will use the silken as an ingredient in something else. I use it with beef TVP, diced green chiles, cheese and eggs, add home canned salsa, and make a bake out of it.

I don't cook like that all the time, just when I am in the mood.

"Happy"? See, that's why you need us. You just THINK you are happy.

 

[Up-the-Creek]

xpc,..I am not a big bean fan either and believe me I am not in no way going to try to convert you to whatever, but, dry beans is a good staple to have around. They are easy and cheap to prepare and for my family, they have come in quite handy in hard times. About the only dry bean I will eat is pinto's. Pinto beans are something you can cook up and do so much with. Cook a big pot of them with a good piece of fatback or bacon for seasoning cook some greens, fried taters, and cornbread with it. Saurkraut is great with pinto's also. Next day, make chili with the leftover beans or refried beans if you like that stuff or just keep eating leftovers. My hubby is a big fan of northern beans(white beans) also. He likes to put them in a crockpot with chunks of ham and cook them overnite. You can also add veggies if you wish. They are pretty good. As I said, they are a good cheap staple to have around and are pretty easy to fix. I always keep a gallon jar full of pinto's,...you never know when things might get tight.