Even More About Getting More Beans into Your Diet

Affordability

A couple recent posts delved into affordability and how to make quality meat affordable.  One solution to the high price of meat, of course, lies in making vegetarian meals once or twice each week (or more.)  It’s no secret that beans are cheaper than meat, but they are also a good source of protein and substance, making them a good center-of-the-plate substitute.

Cooking Your Own Beans

Hands-down, I recommend the slow cooker for cooking beans, like these pretty variegated beans from Monroe Organics. Be sure to save the juice for use like a broth (see suggestions in article.)

For even greater affordability, cook your own beans.  Then you can enjoy high-grade organic beans for just pennies per serving.  And it’s easy. Contact us for a reference sheet that you can keep handy in your cooking files.  Alternatively, check out a previous post on cooking beans, and one on an accelerated method.  I have found the slow cooker to be the best method for cooking dried beans; it eliminates many of the problems people associate with the operation.  And if time is an issue, here’s some good news.  Yesterday, I needed some beans quickly to take pictures for this series of blog posts, so I discovered an even faster, slow cooker method:

Super Accelerated Slow Cooker Beans–No Soaking Required

• Step 1: Boil for 5 Minutes  (In a large saucepan, combine 1-2 cups dried beans  with about a quart of water.  Bring to a boil for cook for 5 minutes.)
• Step 2:  Drain  (Drain beans into a colander–but save the juices for watering plants–then put drained beans into the slow cooker)
• Step 3:  Boil More Water (Fill the large saucepan with another quart of water and bring to a boil)
• Step 4:  Combine and Cook (Pour the boiling water over beans waiting in the slow cooker.  Cover and cook on HIGH heat until tender to your tastes–which can be a s little as 3 to 4 hours.  Keep an eye on them as they cook more quickly than expected.)
• Step 5:  Add Salt (Wait until beans are cooked to the desired tenderness then stir in 1/4 to 1 tsp. good sea salt, to taste.)
• Step 6:  Eat and Enjoy (Freshly cooked beans are good enough to serve as a side dish, on their own.)

Cooking Classes Using Beans

If you want to learn more about cooking with beans, check out our classes which very often include a bean dish or two.

Waste Not-Want Not:   Bean Juice

Speaking of affordability, there’s no need to throw out the liquid from cooking beans.  Maximize food dollars, flavor and nutrition:  Drain the juice into a jar.  Refrigerate and use for cooking rice, thinning soups, cooking harder vegetables, deglazing pans or anywhere else that you’d use a broth.  It keeps for several days, or freeze it in small portions for later use.

Note:  Higher quality beans will have better juice.  For instance, Eden Organic beans are cooked with kombu, a sea vegetable that adds nutrients and reduces or eliminates the need for salt.  Conversely, lower quality beans may be cooked with a lot of salt to mask a flavor deficit.  In all dishes where you add bean juice , but especially those with higher sodium juice, be sure to taste before adding more salt.

Convenience and Freezing

You certainly can’t beat beans’ convenience.  Just open a can and you’re ready to go!  “But what if I can’t eat the whole can?” you might be wondering.  Or what if you cook a batch of beans from scratch, which tends to make a lot!  No problem.  Beans store in the frig for several days and extras can also be frozen in single serving sizes.

Recipe: Using Beans in Green Salads

Winter Green Salad with Cumin Dressing

Red beans add a delicious warmth to this salad. Note that I substituted yellow corn chips since I had no corn in my freezer pantry.

This salad was inspired by Nava Atlas’ Vegetarian Express cookbook, which features a number of salads using canned and frozen mix-ins.  While Nava uses these convenient foods to quickly perk up a salad, they’re also great for adding color, texture and heartiness to salads in the winter months, when tomatoes, cucumbers and other common salad standbys are out of season (and are therefore quite expensive and not very tasty.)

For the Salad

I’m just giving an ingredient listing; use amounts that best suit your household size and tastes.

• Lettuce and/or spinach
• Canned tomatoes, diced (or reconstituted sun-dried tomatoes, sliced thinly)
• Frozen corn kernels, thawed
• Olives, black or green, sliced thinly
• Red Beans, well drained
• Cilantro, chopped, if desired for garnish

Notes 

1. Lettuce:  A sturdier green, like Romaine, green leaf lettuce or bunch spinach will do the best job of holding up the heavier mix-ins.
2. Canned Tomatoes:  As always, use a high-quality brand for best flavor, like Muir Glen.  So they don’t make the salad soggy, dice them, remove seeds and then drain well in a colander before adding to the salad.  Fire-roasted tomatoes are a nice addition.
3. Corn:  For best results, remove from the freezer in the morning and thaw in the frig in a colander all day.  Otherwise, just microwave 1-2 minutes and drain, or place in a colander, rinse with hot water and drain well before adding to salad.
4. Rice:  For a heartier salad yet, add a little warm brown rice.

For the Dressing

Fast Version:  Simply add the cumin and chili flakes (noted below) to 1/4 to 1/2 cup readymade Italian dressing.

Homemade Version:  Combine in the order given in a small, lidded jar.  Shake well to combine.  Allow to sit for at least 10-15 minutes for flavors to meld.

• 1-2 cloves garlic, minced (to taste)
• 4 Tbsp. freshly squeezed lime juice
• 2 Tbsp. olive oil
• 1 tsp. ground cumin
• 1/8 tsp. chili flakes (more or less, to taste) or black pepper, to taste
• Sea salt, to taste

Dried Beans–More Cooking Tips

Shelled beans at Abbondanza Farms

An earlier post explained several ways to cook dried beans.  While desk cleaning recently, I ran across an article with more bean-cooking tips.  It’s by John Broening, the owner of several seasonal and local restaurants in Denver and long-time Denver Post columnist.  I love John’s informative and down-to-earth articles, like “Winter Beans,”* where he sings the praises of his favorite comfort food, dried beans.  Along the way he shares two cooking nuggets:

1. First, it may seem that dried beans are indestructible, and indeed they do have the advantage of a long shelf life.  But John notes that older beans have longer cooking times.  I’ve also found their flavor begins to diminish over time.  Of course it’s perfectly safe to eat beans that are a year or two old–no need to pitch them–but see if you can use them up in a year.  Not only does that artificial deadline  ensure better beans.  It will also inspire you to get more healthful beans into your meals–starting now!
2. Secondly, John notes that our altitude makes stove top or oven cooking more difficult.  “Beans at altitude take twice as long to soften as they do at sea level and tend to cook unevenly.”  I’ve certainly found this to be true when cooking beans on the stove top.  Maybe that’s why a lot of people resort to canned beans.  Happily, I’ve not noticed this problem when cooking beans in the slow cooker, although I do have to use the “high” setting.

An electric pressure cooking is John’s solution for the altitude problem.  I’ve never used one, so let us know if you have experience to share on this point.  And in the meantime, give your slow cooker a try.  Although canned beans are perfectly fine, you’ll be amazed to see how flavorful beans can be when home-cooked.  No wonder John views them as the ultimate comfort food!

P.S. Why not make a bean dish tonight:  a white bean soup with kale, a red bean enchilada casserole, black bean burgers, garbanzo bean hummus. . . . There are so many options!

*from Edible Front Range, Winter 2009, p. 43

How to Cook Dried Beans–Stovetop, Slow Cooker, Pressure Cooker

There are several ways to cook dried beans:

Stovetop

Surprisingly, small pebbles can sometimes be found in dried beans, so start by spreading them on a plate and check for intruders, as well as any shriveled or darkened beans.

Place 1 cup sorted beans in a saucepan and fill with enough water to cover beans by about 2″. Soak the beans overnight (or at least 4 hours) for a better textured bean and to improve digestibility.

Pour beans into a colander to drain off soaking water. Return to pot and add 4 cups water.

Bring the water to a boil for 15 minutes, then reduce the heat and simmer until the beans are tender and the water is absorbed-which can take as a long as three hours. Beans are done when they can be mashed with a fork. If necessary, add more water if the initial amount of water is absorbed before the beans are fully cooked.
Note:  Unlike rice and pasta, SALT SHOULD NOT BE ADDED to beans before they are cooked. Salt and acidic ingredients (like tomatoes) toughen beans and greatly increase the cooking time. So salt to taste only after the beans are cooked.

Slow Cooker

Follow the same procedures for cooking on the stovetop, but soak and cook the beans in slow cooker.  Cook on high about 6-8 hours on the “high” setting for a soft, easy to mash bean. Note that slow cookers vary in their heat output, so some experimentation may be necessary to find the cooking time that suits your cooker and tastes. Refer to your cooker’s instruction manual for more guidance.

Pressure Cooker

For a fast-cooking option, invest in a pressure cooker, which can cook beans in as little as five to ten minutes. Because the water amounts and cooking times vary widely depending on the type of bean, however, reference your cooker’s instruction manual or Cooking Under Pressure by Lorna Sass, for the exact information on each bean type (as well as great recipes.) As with the previous methods, the beans should be pre-soaked. Also, adding a tablespoon of oil to the cooking water helps reduce foam.

More Tips:  Read more about successful bean cooking.