Cooking with Dry Beans and Peas

Todd Parr wrote:

r ranson wrote:bottom burps

Lol, excellent.

Or when you're adding to the bubbles in the hot tub, make sure the jets are ON first. :)

Two years ago I tried these brown soup peas. https://www.saltspringseeds.com/products/carlin
They are called Carlin
I am in zone 3 in central BC Canada.
They grew beautifully and are the best tasting soup peas I've tried so far.
Unfortunately the pigs got out this year and ate all my peas.
So I will be ordering more in the next couple weeks.

Does anyone know where I could get s couple seeds of the grey soup pea mentioned earlier?
We LOVE pea soups.

We enjoy recipes made with the beans from the garden. Especially the runner beans which have a wonderful flavour. But this can be made with any bean.

This is in the way of a savoury crumble.
I sweat onions, leeks, chopped carrots and celery in a mixture of butter and olive oil. Garlic is optional - i.e. whether I have some handy or not. I add some flour to soak up the oil and then add some stock slowly making a thickened sauce, then add beans or dried peas that have already been soaked and cooked.

I make the topping with flour, butter, salt, pepper and herbs. Roughly rub 4 ounces of butter into 8 ounces of flour until it resembles breadcrumbs and add the seasoning. Then I put a handful of oats and a tablespoon of mixed sunflour and pumpkin seeds and mix in.

I spread the topping over the bean and mixture without pressing down and pop in the oven at 180°C for around 35 mins or the the top is toasty brown

Serve with a savoury vegetable gravy (or if you are British,  Bisto!), and some sprouts, or broccoli and mashed potatoes.

The bean mix can also be cooled and made into pasties with a butter shortcrust pastry and are great hot for lunch or cold for picnics.  
Enjoy!

Recently cooked a batch of white beans that had some green peas in the bottom of the jar. Cooked them together. The result was white beans in a thick pea gravy. It was an excellent combination. Serendipity.

I enjoy beans of all sorts & cooked many ways. The one I have most experience growing & eating is pinto beans. I make what is called charro beans or TexMex beans. Boil the beans. Some pork or other seasoning meat. Add onion, garlic, cilantro, jalapeno &/or other peppers, salt, and the secret ingredient chili petin pepper. Then big gobs of chili powder & cumino. Reduce heat to a simmer & until the beans are soft & the gravy thickens. Adjust seasonings to taste during the cooking process. It's supposed to be spicy!!!

Next step .... put it on some enchiladas or guiso arroz. Es muy bueno comida mi amigos.

Si, Stevie Ray Vaughan habla caliente frijoles. WHAM!

I grow lots of beans and dry them. when I need some I can a load from dry.
Favoyrite recipe?
Black beans, cooked till soft
Golden syrup, or sweetener of choice
3 eggs, 3 oz or so of soft butter or melted coconut oil.

Whizz up till thick and creamy.
Fold in dried fruits, nyts, choc chips to taste
Fold in drinking coco tovtaste. Bake in a medium tray until just cooked.
Leave for 24 hours, if you can.

I like to cook pea soup, there were no problems with digestion)

Hi im trying to make split peas soup for the first time and only could find the whole yellow pea, i washed and let them soaking over night. I boiled them but now all in my water is the peels or skin and no peas, my question is do i puree with the skin ( peels)  or just drain off thw water?

Let's share recipes, talk about cooking tricks, nutrition, and yes, even growing dry beans and peas.  What's your favourite variety?  What's you most profound bean related experience?  Do you have a bean related book you love?

Please share recipes.  Especially recipes that highly the more frugal nature of dry beans and peas.




I grew my first dry beans and peas a couple of years ago.  I was shocked with how easy it is to grow and harvest.  It's the true do-nothing crop.  Then, in the midst of my celebration, I realized one crucial thing.  I had spent a year, planing and growing these pulses.  Caught up in the enthusiasm, I never stopped to think how I was going to eat them.  I had no idea how to cook them.  I despaired.  Then I got over it and learned how to cook dry beans.

First I started with Indian food and lentils.  The recipe actually came from a nurse that was tending my Grandfather, who had recently immigrated from Northern India.  Her recipe was very simple and delicious.  It went something like this:

Indian Lentils: Wash some lentils and soak them while you prepare the other ingredients.  Get an onion, leek or other similar thing, chop it up fine.  Fry it in butter or ghee until translucent.  Add garlic if you like.  Chop up some herbs extra fine and add them, or use dry spices like turmeric (lots of this), cumin, salt and pepper.  Add spices or herbs to the onions, stir it around a bit.  Drain the lentils, add them to the pot.  Just cover with fresh water, and cook until done.

So I did this, and within half an hour I had a big pot of what she called Doll (which I later learned was actually Dhal - my ears weren't use to her accent so that's why I got it wrong).  Making this Dhal was revolutionary for me.  I started cooking all sorts of pulses to discover what I liked.  


I discovered that chickpeas, lentils and fava beans have a much easier to digest fibre than most other pulses.  This is good to know if you are on a low fibre diet.

Chickpeas go amazing in a stir fry.

There are a lot of different 'right' ways to cook beans, and all of them work some of the time.  None of them seem to work all of the time.  But I love gathering up all the lore for cooking the perfect pot of bean.

Pulses are forgiving and far easier to cook than I originally thought.


One of the books that made a huge difference in my adventure with beans is The Resilient Gardener.  Another was Hip Pressure Cooking (both book and website).  We can even make our own Miso Paste from almost any kind of bean.

I got some neat ideas about Growing Fava Beans from the good people at permies.com (hey, that's you guys).

Once I made the decision to buy a pressure cooker, it changed how I approach beans in the kitchen.  Before the pressure cooker, if I wanted to cook chickpeas, I needed to have a good 4 hours dedicated to the task.  Pressure cooker does it in 14 min.

Another thing that has me very excited about beans is a new book that's coming out, The Power of Pulses.  It's all well and good knowing that beans are healthy, good for you, good for the environment, and all that jazz.  It's another thing knowing how to cook them.  I really hope this book is going to be as good as it's hype.

Yet another fun thread about Growing Yellow Split Peas.  Anyone ever done this?  Maybe you can pop over there and offer some hints and tricks.   I love split peas.  They cook up so quickly and have a fantastic creamy texture.

looks great and seems test good, will have a try

All seeds, including beans have lectins, phytates and enzyme inhibitors in them. Once the seed sprouts many of these disappear. Therefore, soaking them, allowing them to begin to sprout and then cooking them at high temperatures make all seeds safer to consume. I use a ferment created from rice soaking/souring that I use in my beans and other seeds to soak them. I soak beans for a minimum of 24 hours and then I let them sit for at least another 24 hours with a couple washes. This allows them to continue to sprout. The sour soaking water or even some acid added to plain water in the initial 24 hour soak will assist the process.

Here is the nutritional/biochemical explanation:

Phytates are largely found in the outer hull of seeds. Phytic acid is the primary storage compound of phosphorus in seeds. It is strongly negatively charged and the phosphate in phytic acid strongly binds to metallic cations of calcium, iron, postassium, Magnesium, Manganeese and Zinc, making them insoluble and thus unavailable as nutritional factors. The process of fermentation, and sprouting can be used to remove phytate from seeds.

Enzyme inhibitors inhibit seeds from sprouting but they also inhibit our digestive enzymes. This can lead to all manner of mild or serious digestive problems. These enzyme inhibitors prevent the seeds from sprouting until just the right conditions come along. The right conditions are usually water, warmth, and slight acidity such as found during fermentation. So, just as with phytates, soaking, or fermentation can remove enzyme inhibitors.

Lectins can be a benefit to humans or they can make you ill depending on the type of lectin. Lectins are carbohydrate-binding proteins that are present in both plants and animals. Some lectins cause sensitivity/allergy reactions. Data suggests that lectins are also inactivated by soaking, sprouting, cooking (high temps like boiling) and fermenting.

Beans are especially high in lectins. Kidney beans are more of a problem than the rest. Kidney beans contain a high level of a very toxic and immunogenic agglutinin called phytohaemagglutinin. They need to be carefully cooked until well done. Boiling or pressure cooking is suggested for kidney beans. Soybean agglutinin (soybean lectin) and concanavalin (an agglutinin in jack beans, which are often used in animal feeds) have been shown to increase epithelial permeability in the digestive tract, much as wheat germ agglutinin does.

I wrote an article on soaking seeds here: https://youarethehealer.org/food-as-medicine/recipes/removing-anti-nutrients-from-food/   The example I give on soaking seeds is for rice, but I do talk about beans in the article too. I am finishing up an article on corn allergy and intolerance that will have a lot more data on lectins, enzyme inhibitors and phytates. It will be on the blog at my website next week.

I took some pinto beans out of a storage jar several years after purchase and presoaked, changed water and boiled for 8 hours. They were still crunchy and tough. Looking it up , I found that other people have similar experiences with old beans: they refuse to get tender. I was determined to use them, so I put them in the blender and made refried beans out of them. I will try to eat beans before they get old, but at least there's a way to use tough beans in lean times.

Mark Trail wrote:I took some pinto beans out of a storage jar several years after purchase and presoaked, changed water and boiled for 8 hours. They were still crunchy and tough.

Mark,
I've had success cooking old beans in a pressure cooker. I generally presoak the beans and cook them under pressure 5 to 10 minutes. Stove top pressure cookers cook faster than an Instatpot.  With either method I let the pressure drop naturally.

Old beans are a bit more iffy timing wise. If the beans are still a tiny bit hard I finish them off on the stove top, but this is generally not an issue.

Your suggestion about grinding the beans into a flour is an excellent way to use old beans, because one can then use it anywhere pureed beans are used.

Just about any kind of bean will grow here as long as it can take the hot summers.  My favorites are black beans.  

Shredded chicken is optional.
Black beans.
Lots of cilantro.
A few cups of pico de gallo (peppers, tomatoes, onion, little garlic, cilantro, lime juice, salt, and pepper)
Salt
Pepper
Cumin

You can use any kind of pepper you want from chipotle to hatch chilli as long as it has at least a little kick.