We're officially moving to Madison, WI next year (!!!) and I'm going to try my hand at being mostly a stay-at-home mom. So, with the idea that I'll have a bit more time at home and a lot less money, I decided to try my hand cooking dried beans to replace a few meals of meat a week and instead of canned beans. I know it's pretty silly to get excited about cooking something that has been a staple of diets around the world for millenia, but, well, here I am, getting excited about cooking dried beans.
I've never been a dried bean convert before because 1) I've never been able to get the right mix of water, heat, attention, and time to end up with beans that are uniformly cooked through without half falling apart from being over-done while the other half still has hard kernels at the center. 2) I've always tried to make beans in big pots that yield a lot more beans than I can eat before they go bad in the refrigerator. And 3) the amount of forethought necessary to have dried beans cooked when I want them eludes me.
Enter the slow cooker and the freezer: It turns out that if you put dried beans in a slow cooker, you can get delicious beans cooked very nicely without a lot of effort or attention. And if you then put your cooked beans in the freezer you can keep them for months without them going bad, and have them ready to use, just like canned beans, at a moment's notice. I haven't figured in the energy price, but bean for bean, I estimate that dried beans are about 1/4 the price of canned beans.
The first thing to consider is: to soak or not to soak? And if you soak, do you then cook in the soaking water or use fresh water. Honestly, I can't figure out what the benefit of soaking the beans would be if you're just going to turn around and cook them in the soaking liquid, but maybe I'm missing something. As far as I can tell, it boils down to how much farting bothers you. If you do a traditional soak overnight, apparently you can remove up to 20% of the gas-causing elements of the bean. Unfortunately, apparently this same chemical is one of the things about beans that is good for your colon health (likely, not unrelated to it's tendency to make you fart). Also, apparently if you eat more beans, your body will adjust to them and they'll disturb your gastrointestinal system less and less. So, take your pick. You can find purists of all colors on the internet, so I tend to go with convenience. One middle of the road option is do what's called a fast soak, where you heat water to boiling, then pour it over your beans and soak for 1 hour. I just tend to go with convenience - whatever works for that day. Like, tonight I was going to cook some beans, and I thought I had time for a fast soak. Then I ran out of time, so now they're doing an overnight soak.
I've so far followed a pretty basic recipe, but it's turned out to be delicious every time. I'm looking forward to trying new flavors as I do this more and more. Here's my basic recipe:
1-2 pounds dried black or pinto or red beans, soaked if desired1 medium-large onion/pound of beans, cut into large wedges
4-6 cloves of garlic/pound of beans, crushed
1-3 bay leaves (my bay leaves are old and cracked into smaller pieces, so if you've got fresher or large bay leaves, you may only need 1)
1 T. salt/pound of beans.
Put the beans, onion, garlic, and bay leaf in a slow cooker. Cover with water to 1 - 1 1/2 inches above the beans. Turn on your slow cooker. I've been cooking mine on high, which takes about 3 hours for black beans that have been fast-soaked. Cooking on slow is supposed to take about 6 hours. About 1/2 hour before the beans are done, stir in the salt, then finish cooking. This weekend I over cooked some pinto beans and some red beans - I think they don't take as long as black beans, and I lost track of time, as always. I think in the future I'm going to turn the heat down to low or just turn it off after I add the salt, to try to prevent over cooking.
After the beans are cooked, I fish out the onion and bay leaf pieces, then drain the beans.
I also made some amazing garbonzo beans. For those, I just put them in the slow cooker with about
4 c of beans.
1/2 t salt
water to cover.
To freeze: spread the beans on a sheet pan in as close to a single layer as you can get. Put the pan in the freezer. When the beans are frozen, store them in a ziploc bag, and use however you would use canned beans.
My kiddos have been going nutzo for the beans I've been making. Suzie has been tooting up a storm as a result, but she seems to think that's pretty funny, so it's all good by me.
Happy rootin'-tootin'-tootalootin'!
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