What's your favorite dried bean?

Chai's Kidney Beans

Soak about a pound of dried kidney beans at least 8 hours or overnight. (buy from a place where they haven't been sitting in a plastic bag on the shelf forever)

Drain and rinse.

Carmalize or heavily sautee a large sweet onion in olive oil and a pinch of salt.

When cooked to desired state, push onions to one side of pot, add oil to cleared area, and add 3 or more cloves of crushed garlic. keep moving it around for less than a minute so it won't become scorched, then mix in with the onions.

Add the drained dried kidney beans and enough water to cover by an inch or 2.

While this is coming up to heat, mix in a little bowl:

1 tsp good salt
1 tsp chipoltle powder
1 tsp cajun seasoning (without salt is best)
1 heaping tsp cumin
Optional:
Whatever additions you feel like, carmoden, saffron mix (don't know there's much saffron at all in it, but has a pretty color), tumeric, etc.

After beans have simmered 20 minutes or so, add your seasoning mix.

Add to beans:
One 14 oz can crushed tomatoes (I like Muir Glen)
One 6 oz can tomato paste.

Simmer until done, anywhere between an addition 40 to 60 minutes.

Cooked bean should crush easily between your fingers. Don't undercook because I understand that kidney beans have a toxin which will make you sick.
See link.
http://www.medic8.com/healthguide/food-poisoning/red-kidney-bean-toxins.html

I wouldn't worry, I don't think undercooked beans would be appetizing. Just cook a little longer when in doubt.

Serve over brown rice, with diced fresh tomato garnish, and/or shredded sharp cheddar cheese.

I like butter beans, pintos, black, and Navy, the best.

I like most beans, black beans are a personal favorite.

butter beans , field peas Smith (yella beans) and Crowder peas. I like the ole fashioned kind that sit well in a sirpy stew made a beans, ham hocks, bacon ends and onions

This makes a damn good potlikker for collards too.

(Im from SUTHERN PENNSYLVNIA)

Cooked dried beans freeze well, so you can make the pound, which will end up being closer to 3 pounds, and freeze them in smaller portions.

So much better than canned.

Eating dried beans helps control spikes in blood sugar, and helps promote weight loss and maintenance of healthier weight. They keep you full longer, and I find the natural sugars in them eliminate sugar cravings.

You don't have to eat huge amounts for these benefits, just half a cup a day.

Mixing beans with brown rice or whole grain bread creates a complete protein.

They're economical of course.

Chai my BH says she likes jelly beans...

preaching to a member of the choir. Ever since I went on a low glycemic index, my dietary needs have been "shifted" away from SPIKEY foods to complex carbs that take a while to fully solute.
I actually love eating the brown flour and rice goods as well as the beans. "Meat" is more a flavoring for us now, and Ive been dropping my sugar intake and potato chip intke to very low amounts. I still have one "pig nite" where I get a double dippa pnut butter and grape nuts ice cream on a bigass waffle cone, and maybe we will have some really decadent foods like pizza.

CONSEQUENCE" Ive lost 32 pounds and am down to almost where I wanna be and my blood work is really great. Ive noticed that Immnot dragging my ass when I walk(lotsa my ass is gone though) (Of course, off loading the equivalent of 3 bowling balls from my pack frame did help)

Cannellini beans, cranberry beans (borlotti), pinto beans, anasazi beans, adzuki (tried them a long time ago, don't remember but also don't remember not liking them), black beans, fava beans (not for a long time, but did like them; fresh ones better than dried), small red beans (not all that familiar with them).... and probably more I'm not remembering. Best? I like the Anasazi beans, but I don't see them in my store(s) often.

Heh, I'm also preaching to myself farmer.

For a few months I was eating beans, a cup or more, if not daily, 5 or 6 times a week.
For me, they're a breakfast, lunch or dinner food.

I was feeling energetic, the scale did slip down a few pounds, and I was really enjoying the variety.

Then something unusual happened in life that I had to attend to. I got thrown off track for awhile, and I can really feel the difference, even mentally.

So this is also a PSA for me.

Beans, chia seeds in lotsa water, swimming and yoga. I'm taking care of me.

mark

Beans were my primary source of nutrition, along with a boiled breakfast of oats or white rice, growing up. Had lots of taters, cornbread and/biscuits. I still love it, particularly the beans.

Just finished a bowl of the aforementioned kidney beans.

I should open a restaurant called "Bean There, Done That"



There's a vegetarian restaurant near my house, called The Bouldin Creek Cafe. Even if you love meat you'll find something great to eat there. It's always busy.

I took an out of state friend there a few weeks ago, and he had The Slacker Special, which is black and red beans over brown rice, garnish if desired, and cornbread.

He wanted to go back the next day, and ordered a Slacker to go for his dad who decided to stay at the hotel.

It's the spices that make it better than eating a filet mignon. Chipolte, cinammon, cumin. I haven't found the right combination yet, but I'll keep trying.

My first mistake was cooking the red and black beans together. The black take much longer, so you have to cook them separately.

This is their soul food plate...

how do they do the collards without a hamhock??

I never put meat in my greens.

Then again, I didn't grow up eating greens, so they taste fine to me with all the other spices. Not sure if I've had theirs, but I'll bet they're good.

Me? I'm of the opinion many times people add meat to something because it's just the way it's always been done in their family, and don't even think about it.

I might be unusual, but I don't think adding meat adds much in the way of flavor that makes it superior to not having it.

Blech, you just reminded me of those nasty canned pork and beans I used to have as a kid. I remember always immediately getting rid of that horrible little white piece of fat in it. I sure don't remember ever thinking "wow, this has meat/fat flavor"

I remember making something, I think pea soup with a ham hock in it in the past, but stopped doing it because it just didn't seem like it made any difference. But again, I was the one that would push the piece of ham out of the way.
I can eat ham now. I'll get one of those spiral sliced ones for a holiday, but I hated it as a kid. I must have looked so disgusted trying to eat it that my mother would make me a hamburger instead. Now That was a big event in my household, making something special for one person. I must have really looked pathetic trying to get it down.

collards cooked in a vegetal base are, are, missing something.

meat is important as a flavoring in many cultures. like thai coconut soup has a slight chicken broth flavor under the vegetal base. Its good and the stuff like coriander needs it to bring it all together.

Im not especially nuts about hams but they can be a great flacoring(and of course, they make a great combo ith sunny side up eggs on a SUnday AM)