Sunday, July 1, 2012

Beans

In my quest to cook more and eat less highly processed food, beans have become a new favorite.  Not only are they nutritious but pretty inexpensive.  But if you buy them in a can you'll have some "bonus" items thrown in - salt, sugar, etc.  Those are the last things I need :)  But cooking dry beans on the stove was not appealing.  Then I found my answer - beans in a crock pot. 

Fix it and forget it.  Before you go to bed, rinse the dry beans well and put them in the crock pot, but don't turn the crock pot on.  When you wake up in the morning, rinse the beans again.  Turn the crock pot on - low takes around 8 hours and high takes around 4 hours.  Come back to beans that are ready for your favorite recipe!  I like to prepare extra beans and put a can's worth - cup and a half - into the freezer.  This means I usually have my favorites on hand ready to go.. garbanzo, pinto, black, lima.  Yum.

Back to the inexpensive part.  A pound of dry beans is around $1.00 to $1.50 depending on type.  A bag is equal to about 4 cans worth of beans.  Crock pots are one of the most efficient items in the home so you're using next to no electricity to cook them.

If you have a pressure cooker you can also prepare them that way.  Beans can be cooked without soaking in as little as 20-40 minutes.  Enjoy!