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
We’ve been using arrowroot powder for gravies since my mom got the idea from Graham Kerr.
It also is gluten free and my son recommended it to a guy he worked with who had celiac and they gut told him that he now basically got his life back. He could eat Montreal Fries again.
My grandmother used to make her meatloaf with the Lipton’s Onion Soup. I still like it better than made any other way.
I have a love/hate relationship with Limas. I really liked the canned ‘Grands’ when I was a kid, but don’t like the frozen ‘babies’.
But I’ve never had heirlooms, and will have to look into them.
Chateau Briand? Fancy fancy!
That looks very good! and fun to make.
Well now I’ll have to try that. Thanks
Super expensive. Maybe a once-in-years treat for us.
And I don’t really enjoy beef, except hamburgers - but that was absolutely wonderful. (We got it from Omaha Steaks.)
My son has celia - he can’t even use a knife that’s cut bread without breaking out. So I’ll have to tell him about the arrow root powder - where do you find it?
I make refried beans using those small red beans you find at Hispanic groceries. Add 2 cups of washed dried red beans to the Instant Pot, add 3 cups of water, add 1/2 tbs of salt, 3 tbs of corn oil, add a bay leaf and a little black pepper. Cut a large yellow onion in half and put that in. Cut a large green pepper in to sections and add that. Cook all this in the Instant Pot for 33 minutes. Fish out and discard the onion, and liquify everything else with an immersion blender. Simmer a bit to thicken, but understand that the beans will naturally thicken as they cool. It’s the green pepper which gives the beans a remarkable taste.
I love the black bean refried beans you get in the foil packet at the Hispanic store, but I’ve never made them from scratch.
(Does cooking beans in your Instant Pot clog the vent? I’ve seen recipes for beans and grains I’d like to try in it, but have been worried about that.)
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I got that recipe from the local Donna Auscena papuseria. I was very impressed with their beans and was always trying to figure out what gave them such a unique taste. When ordering, I would lean over the counter and try to see what spices were on their shelf, but I could never figure it out. Finally, I asked the cook, and she just went on and told me. The green pepper was the secret ingredient.
“Pioneer” brand packaged gravy mixes!
Hands down a must-have for the cupboard. Great variety of mixes but most stores only carry white/brown gravy. In my area, Food Lion carries an admirable selection of Pioneer products. Food Lion also carries a good selection of “Southern” baking products and some canned goods.
“Hands down the best” - Pioneer Gravy Mix to be sure!
I actually just saw it on the shelf and thought well these folks have been around for a while so maybe they got it right...so I picked up a couple packages. I was so delighted I did and will use them if I can’t make my own. Every other brand out there isn’t worth the money at all.
I’m sure you’re right. I have only one type of food allergy and I can live without the offenders pretty easily. I miss them though!
We’ve decided that we are going to make veal Oscar for Easter dinner. Looking forward to that! Definitely a treat these days.
I might actually do a spiral ham dinner this year rather than other meats which I generally do. That or just get Kentucky Fried chicken as we have a great store here and it beats cooking.
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