This post has nothing to do with music (unless you think of that old saw that refers to beans as the musical fruit). Don't tell me that it didn't just cross your mind before reading between the parentheses in that first sentence.
Anyway, this is a bit of practical advice appropriate for times like these when it is wise to keep dried beans around. Dried beans keep for years, and they take up less than half the space of canned beans. I think that they taste better because I can control the amount and kind of salt that I use to bring out their flavor.
That's our current stash above. I was shocked to see that we no longer have lentils! (I wrote them on the list for the shopping trip we are planning to take next week.)
I used to be deeply puzzled by the amount of time it took for beans to cook. Cookbooks would say to soak beans overnight and boil them for an hour, but I had to boil them for three hours. I tried using unsalted water, and I tried salting the water. Salting the water would help, but the beans would still come out tough, even after three hours.
I learned that our water is hard (i.e. it tastes good and has a high mineral content), so one fine day a few years ago I tried putting a little bit of baking soda (just a pinch) in the water to balance out the Ph before cooking beans, and VOILA! The beans cooked perfectly!
I hope that this solves your difficulties cooking beans if you have hard water!
3 comments:
I boil beans for five minutes, then leave them to soak overnight; that cuts down on the eventual cooking time. Also, black-eyed peas given the same treatment cook very quickly. In fact I have some soaking on the back of the stove now.
Even the "boil before" method didn't work for me (such is the state of our water). Thanks for your comment, and I now have Dreamers Rise in my blogroll. Stay safe and healthy!
Elaine just asked me, “Have you ever seen the blog Dreamers Rise? It’s fantastic.” So I said, “Oh! That’s Chris.” In our house you’re known as “Chris, the guy whose blog I read” or “Chris, the guy who reads my blog.” Now your name and your blog’s name are more solidly joined.
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