Posted on 03/31/2022 11:12:14 AM PDT by Jamestown1630
My grandmother made a wonderful navy bean soup, and my husband makes a good one, too. Beyond those - besides a very good canned black bean soup that Goya makes - I don’t have a lot of experience with beans.
But I’ve recently discovered heirloom beans, and want to broaden my bean horizons. They are supposed to be far superior to the mass-produced beans available in supermarkets, and two companies that offer many varieties are Zursun Beans in Idaho:
And Rancho Gordo in California:
I’m especially interested in the various Black Lentils offered, and the French Flageolets; and I found a couple of recipes for those:
Karen Tedesco at Family Style Food.com, has posted this Black Lentil Salad with Feta:
Black Lentil Salad with Feta and Cucumber
Dressing:
1 cup each Italian parsley and cilantro leaves loosely packed (or 2 cups of either herb)
1 jalapeño pepper chopped (leave the seeds in if you like it spicy)
1 clove garlic
1 teaspoon ground cumin
1 teaspoon ground coriander
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 cup (125 ml) olive oil or avocado oil
1 tablespoon (15 ml) red wine vinegar
Salad:
1 cup black or French-style lentils
1 teaspoon salt
2 baby Persian cucumbers, cut into small dice
1/2 red onion thinly sliced (1/2 cup)
1/2 cup fresh mint or Italian parsley leaves
1/2 cup (125 g) crumbled feta or goat cheese
Make the dressing:
Combine all ingredients in a high-speed blender or small food processor until very smooth.
Make the salad:
Bring 4 cups water to a boil with the salt. Add the lentils and cook 20-25 minutes. Taste-test: They should be tender but not mushy. Drain well and allow to cool to room temperature.
Put the cucumbers, onion and lentils in a serving bowl. Add 1/3 cup of the dressing and toss gently. Sprinkle the salad with the mint or parsley leaves and goat cheese and toss again.
Serve the salad with additional dressing spooned over, if you like.
NOTES Pick through the lentils before cooking to be sure they don't contain an errant stone or twig (lentils are all-natural and plant-based and sometimes that happens) Substitute French lentils if you can't find black ones. Refrigerate leftover dressing for up to 3 days. It's delicious on any salad or as a sauce all on its own.
https://familystylefood.com/black-lentil-salad-2/
A recipe for Flageolets in Lemon Dressing is at the Rancho Gordo site:
https://www.ranchogordo.com/blogs/recipes/flageolet-beans-with-lemon-dressing
Both of the companies mentioned above have a lot of good recipes at their sites.
These days, with prices for food – and especially meat! – rising so much, beans are a good way to stretch our budgets, and they don’t have to be boring. Even the heirloom dried beans seem reasonably priced, considering their nutrition and flavor value.
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One thing I noticed during the whole Covid thing was my boredom with food – including many things I’ve always liked a lot and made routinely. I began looking for unusual and more flavorful things that I’d made in the past, and one of the first things that came to mind was a recipe for Indonesian Gado Gado.
Gado Gado is one of the national dishes of Indonesia, and consists of raw or slightly cooked vegetables in a peanut sauce. There are probably as many variations on it as there are households that make it - many contain hard-boiled eggs - but here is a good ‘beginner’ one, adapted from Alastair Hendy’s ‘Cooking for Friends’:
Gado Gado
¾ C. peanuts, salted or unsalted, and coarsely crushed
1 clove garlic
¼ to ½ tsp. Salt
1 or 2 small red chili peppers, seeded and chopped
6 tablespoons brown sugar *
1-1/2 tsps. granulated sugar
4 limes,
2 large green apples – or you can substitute green mangoes, or papayas, peeled and seeded
2 sprigs each of fresh mint, cilantro, and basil, torn into small pieces
Toast the peanuts in a skillet over medium heat, shaking the pan now and then, until the peanuts are lightly toaste/flecked. Remove from heat.
Crush the garlic and salt in a mortar and pestle until a paste is formed. Add the chilies and mash into the garlic paste. Add the brown sugar, and pound until everything is incorporated. Now add the crushed peanuts and pound them in, leaving some in little chunks. (Add a little lime juice if your mixture becomes too thick.) Scrape the mixture into a bowl, add the juice of 2 limes, stir to combine, and set aside.
In a large bowl, combine the granulated sugar with the juice of 1 lime.until the sugar dissolves. Cut the apple or other fruit into julienne strips. Place the herbs and fruit in the bowl with the granulated sugar and lime, and set aside.
Cut the remaining lime into sections. Place portions of the salad on individual serving plates, spoon some of the peanut dressing on top, and serve with lime wedges.
* You can also use Palm Sugar, more authentic to the recipe, if available to you.
-JT
Thx for the hot tip.
Very nice. I like the big bunny on the egg.
I’m interested in the new silicone molds for cookies - they seem to impress better than the old wooden ones did:
https://www.etsy.com/listing/851051606/butterfly-silicone-cookie-mold
That is so pretty.
I haven’t tried them yet - I’ll let you know how they work.
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So cute.
I just recently learned about the "pullman pan" that makes perfect sandwich bread....
has anybody used one?...
and secondly, can you use it for dense cake, like pound cake???
I wish everyone on the Cooking Thread who observes Easter a blessed one, and all of our Jewish FRiends a joyous Passover.My favorite movie ever was “The Passion of the Christ”. But it was the toughest to watch.
(2nd was “It’s A Wonderful Life” and that was just plain fun.)
The movie ended and all the viewers just sat there sorta stunned.
Mel Gibson is doing a sequel, “The Passion of the Christ: Resurrection”
We’ve always liked ‘It’s a Wonderful Life’, too. We watch it every year around Christmas.
I wasn’t crazy about ‘The Passion’.
Once a year when we had a turkey we would cook the innards for gravy. Our dear cat who lived to be 19, Sadie, would know when the innards were cooled she would come in the kitchen and beg for the heart and liver. She never came in the kitchen otherwise and was not a beggar. She ate those two pieces with gusto, talking and grilling with her mouth full. Thanks for the memory. Happy Easter to all. We always have lamb at Easter. Just the 2 of us so it’s 2 roasted lamb shanks this year.
When our cat would smell them on the stove, he’s stand up trying to reach them. Only time he ever did that.
I really wish our current cats would eat stuff like that. They’re the only ones we’ve had who don’t want anything to do with ‘people’ food at all.
They were born and initially raised in a shelter, and basically refuse anything but dry cat food. One will eat a few bites of canned, but I generally waste money on that - it’s a dice-throw as to whether he’ll eat it on any given night.
Would love a link if you have one for the Betty Crocker book in .pdf. I just looked at the online prices a couple if weeks ago. And about paprika, we only like and use smoked sweet paprika. We get it from Butcher Packer.com online. They are out of Detroit. One pound bag is about 8 bucks. Amazing stuff.
We love the Jesus of Nazareth series too, so many great stars. I like to watch it in chunks, throughout the year. Just finished it up last night after church.
about the cat I meant growling but auto correct said grilling,
Do you mean the Betty Crocker kids’ book I mentioned earlier?
I think it was on archive.org. I’ll check again.
I thought you mentioned the adult book. Sorry. Also I got confused. I watched a youtube a week or so ago and she held up a cookbook, an oldie. That was the one I searched for. Hard to find and pricey but looks good. Youtube is how to make apple fritters. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o1be4O8Ri9w
Yes, it’s very long. We started watching it today, and I just decided to buy it - it’s one of the few movies I’ve seen in my life that I want to own.
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