My blog's title is due in part to my fondness for the humble bean. Legumes are wholesome, tasty, versatile and cheap, what else could you want in food?
Despite my bean penchant, I admit always buying the canned rather than dried variety. Once, as a college student, I tried to cook dried beans and the result was less than appetizing. My local grocery stores sells a variety of canned 15.5 oz beans for $0.55 each, so dried beans hardly seem worth the hassle.
However, yesterday I threw caution to the wind and cooked up some dried beans in the Crockpot. The result was superb! I mixed 1 cup dried beans with 4 cups water and 1 bay leaf, turned the crock pot on high and ~5 hours later, I had a pot of tasty, fragrant beans.
I used about 3/4 in a chili recipe and will use the rest later this week.
I'm converted!
Dried Beans
February 4th, 2008 at 11:59 pm
February 5th, 2008 at 12:03 am 1202169833
February 5th, 2008 at 02:07 am 1202177278
Secret #3 is using reasonably fresh dried beans. The ones that you (well, I, at any rate) have in the back of the cupboard from 3 years ago are still perfectly good food, but they take lots longer to cook and never get as soft as the fresher stock.
February 5th, 2008 at 03:18 am 1202181482
I had a good find recently at Aldi. They were selling off all their canned black beans for 20-cents a can. I scooped up all the remaining cans!
February 5th, 2008 at 03:57 am 1202183843
February 5th, 2008 at 05:48 am 1202190505
February 5th, 2008 at 04:31 pm 1202229097
February 5th, 2008 at 11:24 pm 1202253897
Similarly I've noticed that certain Asian products are only stocked for a short time. That is too bad because I found a terrific Orange/Mango sauce there that was only $1.29 for the bottle. Every subsequent visit there, I have not found that product.