Your mission, if you choose to accept, is to start using or increase your frequency of use of dry beans in your menu plan.
Level of Commitment: Baby Steps
For a while when I first started Kitchen Stewardship, I may have been known as a beany gal. I had lots to say about beans, focused a huge early Monday Mission on eating more beans, and even ran a meal plan analysis series to help people include more beans in their weekly plans. It was clear how I felt about beans.
Lately, we’ve been tackling many other things, and I think it’s worth a big re-visit to the beans topic. Using beans makes the list of my 3 Easy Changes to Make That Won’t Cost Too Much, and I’d put them pretty high up on any list of foundational Kitchen Stewardship habits. I personally try to include them at least once a week in our dinners.
Why?
Beans have a lot going for them. When you’re fighting the tensions of the four pillars of Kitchen Stewardship, you often feel the pull: your budget starts to hurt because of the meat, milk and eggs you are buying to be more kind to the earth and improve your nutrition. You’re spending a lot of time preparing healthy grains and wondering how much to spend on organics. It’s tough to balance them all, and that’s why I’m here. I love to focus on any habit that hits all four pillars with a positive impact.
Beans are:
- very nutritious, a source of both protein and iron, among other things
- extremely frugal, especially if you use dry beans
- fairly easy on the earth, with only a plastic bag going to waste with dry beans (or nothing, if you can find them in bulk)
- not time-consuming and can make huge meals that are easy to freeze for simple dinners later
I’m a big fan!
Take One Step Up
For your Back to Basics mission this week, ponder your relationship with beans and take one step forward on the continuum:
- Bean haters: Try sneaking some lentils into taco meat or finding a good hummus you can stand. Start small!
- Occasional bean users: Shoot for beans once a week for the next month in your menu plans (are you with Plan to Eat yet?). Your budget and waistline will thank you!
- Canned bean lovers: Learn to soak and cook dry beans, both to upgrade the nutrition and make more space in your food budget for other things (like next week’s Back to Basics focus, healthy fats).
- Dry bean aficionados: You all have it easy this week. Rest on your laurels a bit, but do find one new bean recipe to try and love.
The Everything Beans Book is here!
I’m making final edits of the informational pages in The Everything Beans Book, but I still need to format all the recipes, which is boring but takes time. Since I’ll be gone most of the last week of January at a blog conference, I realized I can’t really release a new book that Monday, nor would it be likely that I’ll be ready to release the following Monday. I’m thinking the second week of February now, which is later than I’d hoped – but I always prefer quality over speed, and you KS readers deserve nothing less than the best.
Inside The Everything Beans Book, published February 2011, you’ll find details on why beans are healthy, six arguments against beans and my counterpoints, detailed steps for how to cook dry beans and store extra cooked beans, soaking and sprouting instructions, how to menu plan with beans and even ideas for the bean haters among you.
There are also 30 recipes, many with multiple variations similar to my Healthy Snacks to Go eBook, so the total value ends up being more than 30 different dinners. I also include links to other great bean and legume recipes around the web, furthering your beany reach.
Here are some cameos to give you a sneak preview of what’s inside, but do keep in mind that beans are not always the most photogenic of foods! I’ve been working on my food photography a bit lately, and with my new camera (nothing fancy, a Sony DSC-W290, great all-around family camera, but a huge improvement over my 5-year-old Sony Elph), I’m pretty happy with the results. It’s almost embarrassing to put any of my old pictures next to these new ones, so I think I’ll just share the four dishes I’ve shot in the past few weeks, along with a few other recipe titles to pique your interest:
Chickpea Wraps…good for the bean haters among you!
Pasta with White (Bean) Sauce…even better for the bean haters! (free download)
Sausage, Bean and Kale Soup…one of my favorites! Perfect for summer or winter.
Mexican Beans and Rice…a classic!
You’ll also find recipes for:
- Turkey Vegetable Chili
- Cuban Black Beans and Rice
- Slow Cooker Lentil Rice Casserole
- Black-Eyed Pea Stovetop Casserole
- White Chicken Chili, two ways
- and much, much more!
Look for a free download/sneak preview on Friday of this week, kind of like I did with the soaked granola bars for Healthy Snacks to Go. UPDATE – the book is published! Buy it HERE!
Are you in? What recipe(s) are you going to try with beans this week?
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I’d love to see more of you! Sign up for a free email subscription or grab my reader feed. You can also follow me on Twitter, get KS for Kindle, or see my Facebook Fan Page.
If you missed the last Monday Mission, click here.
Kitchen Stewardship is dedicated to balancing God’s gifts of time, health, earth and money. If you feel called to such a mission, read more at Mission, Method, and Mary and Martha Moments.
Disclosure: Plan to Eat is a January sponsor of KS, receiving a complementary mention in this post. See my full disclosure statement here.
I’m in category #4 but I have given myself a challenge – to try to grow my own this summer. I’ve been drooling over seed catalogs. Not sure if I’ll be successful but I figure it’s a fairly inexpensive experiment.
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I really wish we could have a series that is how to like beans, period LOL. I know how good they are for us, but other than hummus which we live on, I just can’t get my palate, or hubby’s palate to tolerate beans. *sigh*
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Teresa Reply:
January 17th, 2011 at 8:54 pm
Maybe try making them in less conventional ways. I did not like beans much at all except humus and refried, but I thought about being a texture things and started looking for other recipes that would meet with the texture. I came about by accident a whole world of usuing beans in baking and deserts, some as the main ingredient (black bean brownies) and some as replacement for fats (mashed white beans for margarine. We also like some beans like chickpeas just plain (as a snack sort of). I also found cooking them taste a bit different from canned.
Slowly we are liking them more, in different varieties and foods.
HTH
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Katie Reply:
January 17th, 2011 at 11:00 pm
Darcy,
Katie
I can’t give away all the secrets from my book, but that would otherwise be a great idea for a series!
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I like the title. Much better than some “magical fruit” reference…
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I am some where between canned beans and dry beans but just placed a bulk order for black beans so will be looking forward to your ebook. This week I plan on using pinto beans as a side for some chicken tacos and adding northern beans to a veggie soup. We also eat a lot of hummus in my house. My 2 year old loves it. Now I just need to learn to make it from scratch.
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I’m definitely in the last category, as beans are a crucial dietary staple for me. Right now I have some garbanzo beans soaking for a planned curry dish. I’m thinking of tackling some Cuban-style black bean dishes, and trying my hand at cooking black-eyed peas for the first time.
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I was just thinking about how I want refried beans. I have some pintos in my cupboard! I think its time to soak and make some. I have garbanzos too which I ike in saads. I want to eat more saads. I used to use beans more I just need to get back into it!
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I always use dried beans. We love beans in our house. Chickpeas are our favorite. I noticed you soak yours overnight in vinegar or lemon juice. Lately I’ve been soaking mine overnight in salted water with wonderful results. They are so creamy on the inside and they still hold their shape. Is the salt doing the same thing the vinegar does?
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Sarah W Reply:
January 17th, 2011 at 5:41 pm
I’d be interested to learn more about this method. I always thought adding salt to beans before cooking or at the beginning of cooking was a no-no… IIRC (and I could be wrong), at least one reason is that they absorb the salt so well that you can’t taste it and then you add more and end up over salting them. And there are some things that keep beans hard through cooking, like tomatoes. I was sorta thinking maybe salt does that too? Although you are clearly getting good results. It’s just the opposite of what I learned to do!
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Annette Reply:
January 17th, 2011 at 6:31 pm
I only soak them in salted water. In the morning I rinse and cook in plain water. It was kind of an experiment I did one night and it worked. I have cooked several batches of chickpeas, pinto bean and navy bean with this method. Only thing I noticed was they seem to cook a little quicker.
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Katie Reply:
January 17th, 2011 at 10:53 pm
Sarah,
Katie
The new recommendations from NT and others “in the know” including award-winning cookbook author Rebecca Wood is to soak in plain, hot water. No salt. No acid. It was when I soaked in acid that I kept ending up with crunchy beans! I forgot to update that very old post before posting this – so sorry folks! – to remove the soaking in acidic medium part. It’s done now…
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Katie Reply:
January 17th, 2011 at 10:55 pm
Annette,
Katie
Yikes, I have the corrected info in the book but never updated that old post! I no longer use the acidic soak, because it results in hard-to-cook, crunchy beans. Technically salt shouldn’t be added until partway through or at the end of the cooking process, at least an hour after simmer, but that’s great if you’re getting good results. It may be that the beans aren’t getting quite as much phytate reduction, however, because the salt would interfere with that (and no one outside a lab would know it for sure).
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I am on a low carb diet right now. I think I’m supposed to stay away from beans. Are any low carb?
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Katie Reply:
January 17th, 2011 at 10:48 pm
Linda,
Katie
If you sprout your beans first, the carbs are reduced because the beans start consuming their own starches. However, if you’re on a doctor’s orders diet, you’ll want to ask about beans! Some low carb diets can do some beans…but again, I’m definitely not an expert.
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It’s so exciting to be in the fourth category!! I do them in my crock pot, but they do end up getting deformed. I might try soaking them another way for my Monday Mission. Your white sauce sounds intriguing! Pick that one for your sneak peek!
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I like to cook ginormous batches of chili and then freeze most of it. We eat chili once a week, alternating between red and white chili and when I can just pull dinner out of the freezer it takes so much off my plate! No prep! Hardly any dishes! And since it’s the only thing I KNOW we are eating each week, it is an anchor in my meal plan.
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We love beans! Unfortunately, in spite of long soaking, they still don’t seem to agree with my tummy. But living in a Caribbean country, beans are the thing to eat! We’ve just recently started making our own bean flour and using it for breads and sauce thickeners. I’m interested to see your recipe for the white sauce! Here they use beans mostly with rice (with many variations), but they also have an amazing sweet bean drink/pudding that they make.
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I am somewhere btw #2 . I’m taking on the mission to get beans at least once a wk and learning to prepare dried beans. (I always succumb to those easy looking cans.) Looking fwd to the bean book since I need some recipe ideas for beans too (=
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I hate beans! Well, that’s not true…. I do love refried beans with rice at my favorite hispanic restaurant, and my aunt’s homemade hummus…. but other than that, it gets a little dicy to get me to eat them…
I’ll accept this challenge.
I have a ton of dried beans that I’ve bought because I want to work on eating them more. I think I can swing in sneaking in those lentils once a week for the next month!
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I didn’t use to like beans at all – I found them fussy and not very tasty. Last year, I too tried to use more beans – and I find lunch the best time to do so. I appreciate having lunch ready, and it’s healthy too.
My favourite recipe is my Hearty 9 Bean Soup.
http://girlfriendlifeline.blogspot.com/2011/01/go-to-lunches-hearty-nine-bean-soup.html
The best things about are that I can make it ahead and enjoy it all week, and that I keep the “bean mix” on hand in a container in my pantry – ready to go! I hope you and your readers enjoy it!
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I’m in category 4 — I eat beans several times a week! It’s the only way that works for us to eat remotely frugally with no grains.
What really got me sold on dried beans was finally figuring out how to get them soft. They were always a little crunchy, even with an overnight soak — I suspect our water may be a touch acidic or something. In any event, I now boil for two minutes and soak overnight (or longer) with a bit of baking soda, then rinse before cooking. They get nice and squishy now! (My ideal bean is just dissolving into refried beans — I don’t care if they keep their shape, though they generally do if I don’t overcook them.)
Bonus to this method — they don’t give me gas. According to my mom, it’s the rinsing that solves that problem.
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Sarah W Reply:
January 18th, 2011 at 2:18 pm
How long do you cook your beans for? Mine typically end up more on the mushy end of the spectum rather than keeping their shape. (How do the people who can beans do that??)
I realized I was overcooking them, or cooking them longer than necessary… which was around 6 hours. Now I find that about 3 hours is a good amount of time.
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Katie Reply:
January 20th, 2011 at 1:09 am
Sarah,
For me cooking time is often different, depending on how my day is going! I just started thinking tonight that maybe adding salt partway through the cooking would help the beans hold their shape and not be so “chalky.” I had some cold on a salad tonight, and I had to eat around them. The texture was just terrible!
More experiments…
Katie
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Sheila Reply:
January 24th, 2011 at 10:32 pm
Oh, I generally only cook for two hours or less! I never remember to put them on that long before dinner.
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Teresa Reply:
January 19th, 2011 at 9:24 pm
Does the baking soda also help with the gas problem? We eat lots of beans, and even with soaking and rinsing before cooking my tummy seems to have issues with them. Though that won’t keep me from eating them…
And does the baking soda have any adverse effect on nutrients?
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Sheila Reply:
January 24th, 2011 at 10:37 pm
I certainly wouldn’t know about the nutrients … like Katie, I would love a home lab that would let me test the nutrient levels of the beans! Generally I combine the baking soda trick with the anti-gas trick my mom taught me — boil for two minutes, soak for (however long you want, I do overnight), DRAIN, rinse, add more water, and cook. That draining seems to drain away most of the gassiness. I still do get some though … I’m very prone to it. And I guess you’re the same way. Probably it would be good to dump the final cooking water as well. Occasionally I get a gas-free batch of beans, but I don’t know what I did to get that!
My mother takes Beano before eating beans and swears by it, and I wonder if probiotics might help just as well. The reason we get gas from beans is that humans can’t digest raffinose, one of the starches in beans, and the bacteria who digest it for us produce gas. So…. probiotics might not help the gas, but they would help any trouble digesting the beans, I guess.
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Glad you are doing this. I cook beans intermittently and am definitely sold on dried versus canned. But I’ve been off my schedule since the long Christmas break away…
Perhaps these will make it into your e-book, but I’ve made some AMAZING black bean brownies and am going to try a chick pea chocolate cake recipe soon. They’re great for the gluten-free folks in our house.
Thanks again for the bean reminder…
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This is a great challenge! I wanted to share a quick tip, since I didn’t see this mentioned. I buy the big bag of dried beans (like 5 lbs or whatever) and then soak and cook them all at once, and then freeze in smaller bags. It’s basically the convenience of canned beans, with the health benefits of soaking your own. I also find that larger beans (kidney beans, pinto beans) are perfect for freezing since they don’t really all clump together. A few whacks of the plastic bag and they come apart and can dumped into soup and made into patties or whatever. So easy!@
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Katie Reply:
January 20th, 2011 at 1:28 am
Perfect! I freeze beans, too, but I don’t think I have a pot big enough for quite 5 lbs!
Katie
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Great photography Katie!
Best,
Sarah
PS – I have a pot of black beans simmering away on the stove right now . . . thinking of you!
PPS – Just read this post today – loving the title of the book (disregard my question in my e-mail!
– oops! This is what happens when I let my reader stack up! 
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Thank you for such great info! I have been trying to substitute dry beans for cans because of BPA in cans. I’ve been struggling to convert recipies that call for cans into amounts of dried beans. I saved the article you linked on cooking beans for future reference!
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I think I’d put myself in category #4 — yay!
I have a question though. I have been sprouting beans a lot lately (it’s so fun!). Does soaking give the same nutritional boost that sprouting does? Is sprouting just soaking, with the process allowed to go further? I have always assumed sprouting reduced the phytates just as much or more than soaking. But if I can accomplish the same thing, nutritionally speaking, in one day as opposed to three, I would totally do that! Is there some other difference I should know about?
I’ve got a big colander full of sprouting lentils on the counter, which will become part of the bulk of “sloppy lentils” sometime this weekend. YUM.
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Katie Reply:
January 22nd, 2011 at 6:49 am
Nikki,
Katie
You can read up on sprouting a bit here: http://www.kitchenstewardship.com/2010/03/19/food-for-thought-the-health-benefits-of-sprouting/
But for legumes, I would say they add more nutrition than just soaking. I’m always frustrated with myself when I am only preparing for a recipe the night before. “Why didn’t I sprout them already?” You’re doing great!
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