Recipe: Beans, beans, the magical fruit …

Beans are truly magical. You can put a bean in any dish and make it wonderful. I never realized how many different kinds of beans there were until I became vegan. Nor did I realize how many different ways there were of making them.

When I first started eating them, as I never really did until about six months ago, I didn’t dare try to cook dry beans. Around Christmas I needed to bring a dish to a party and needed to find Navy beans. For the life of me I couldn’t find them canned, but I did find them dry. Looking at the dried beans scared me. There was no way that I could play around with such serious stuff. I just chose a different canned white bean instead.

Since then, I joined the hard hitters and started making my beans from scratch. Thankfully, it is not as scary as I once thought. It’s really just a waiting game – waiting for them to soak and then waiting for them to cook!

Another great thing about dried beans is the price. You can easily get organic dried beans in the equivalent amount of non-organic canned beans for a fraction of the price. I typically go to the bulk dried goods at my local Whole Foods. Now, I think Whole Foods, while wonderful, as rather expensive, so I don’t shop there often. However, the organic dried beans I buy there are much cheaper than the non-organic canned beans I buy elsewhere.

A good bit of knowledge when purchasing your dried beans:

1/3 cup of dried beans = 1 cup cooked beans

1/2 cup of dried beans = 15oz can of beans = 1 1/2 cups cooked beans

Some recipes call for beans in terms of “cans” and some in terms of “cups.” This makes an easy transfer from one to the other depending on what your recipe calls for.

I’ve been making a big batch of beans and then putting them into containers and into the freezer. It is easy to take one out in the morning and putting it in the fridge and then finishing thawing it later when you want to use it. I just run water over them and it does the trick! And if you have a dish with more than one kind of bean, you can soak and cook them together for ease.

How to cook beans:

1. Put your beans into a bowl. Make sure it is one with enough space to place about three cups of water for every cup of beans (the beans will expand). Before placing water into the bowl sort through the beans to make sure that there are no rocks or sticks. I haven’t found any yet, but I still check just in case, that way no lost teeth!

2. Fill the bowl with water so the beans can soak, again, abut three cups water for every cup of beans. Then wait. Most should soak for about 8 hours. It’s easy to put the bowl-o-beans in the fridge overnight. Beans such as Split Peas, Lentils and Butterbeans do not need to be soaked and can be cooked right away. And some of the hardest beans need up to 12 hours to rehydrate before cooking. They say, the larger the bean the longer it should soak and the longer you soak the beans, the quicker they will cook.

3. Rinse the beans that you have soaked overnight and do not cook using that water. My understanding is that the sugars that are indigestible leave the outer coating of the bean and go into the water. As they are indigestible, you should avoid them to avoid the famous bean effect. That and the beans are most likely dirty, so you want to get rid of that water.

4. In a large pot place the rinsed beans and add fresh water. I usually use a soup pot because I know that it is big enough to hold the beans and extra water.

5. Set the beans on the stove and then bring them to a boil. Once they are boiling, turn the heat down to a simmer. Then, simmer for about an hour or hour and a half. Check the beans as they are cooking. They will be done when they can easily be mashed. Don’t forget to put the beans to a simmer because you may get ruined beans and a burnt pan otherwise. This is a picture of when I got too wrapped up in a movie and forgot about my beans. They were boiling for the hour instead of simmering, thus the water spilled out of the pan, evaporated and the beans got burnt.

6. If you are cooking a large enough batch they can be separated into separate containers and then stored. I store them in the same liquid they cooked in, they beans will be rinsed again before eating. Beans will last about four days in the fridge and longer in the freezer. I typically use some glass two-cup sized pyrex dishes to put mine in. It tends to make the perfect serving size for two people and most of the dishes that I make.

Cooking beans can seem scary but it can be quite easy and yummy if you give it a bit of thought. If in the end you burn them, the only bad thing that can happen is you don’t have beans that night!!