Do you have any good bean recipe's?
 

It comes as no surprise that the healthiest of all edibles is beans. Oh, God, I love 'em.

BUT, I have hit the wall for recipe's. My family groans when I go to boil yet another pot of beans.

Does anybody have some good suggestions or recipes for beans?

"Flame On"

A great post ride treat is a big plate full of baked bean toasted sandwiches...... and you can vary the flavors by adding bbq sauce, curry powder, chilli sauce etc....

Any particular sort of beans?

I could live on chick-peas and have a few recipes.

Split peas or lentils make a good Dhal if you like spicy food.

Italian cuisine seems to use more beans than most.

Name me a bean and I'll see what I can come up with (providing you don't mind vegetarian).

Richard

-- :) -- Obligatory comment about jet propelled bikes. -- :) --

bushbros.com has some recipes. I like the Red Beans and Rice recipe. It's tasty and easy to make. Of course it's not too good if you're a vegetarian.

I like all beans. Mostly, I eat navy beans, great northern, pinto - you know - the common ones.

I would be interested in some recipes for some readily available, but less common beans.

Okay, just a minor problem I know what pinto beans are, and regularly use them but Navy Beans and Great Northern aren't ones you get in the UK (at least not under those names) :)

Do you get any of the following?:

Red Kidney beans
Canellini
Flagolet
Ful Medames
Butter beans
Chick Peas/Garbanzo
Black eyed beans

Richard

I really like Indian lentil bean recipies, and at home we often have cannellinis and escarole, and even pasta chiche. Another of my favourites is frijoles negros, since the large Puerto Rican/Jamaican influence locally means that good black beans are always available. Also, a large Indian community makes it easy to find mung beans.
I really can't stand bland old navy beans anymore, now that I've seen what a good cook can do with better beans.

D*Alex, I can't agree with you more. With so much versatility with beans, why stick to the common ones. As a vegetarian, I definitely eat my fair share. By far, my favorite dishes are Indian ones. Indian dishes can be flavored and spiced to anyones taste. But, I have to admit, my all-time favorite is sag paneer (spinach w/ cheese)...no beans, but darn good.

Mike, my advice? Get a good Indian cookbook. And it doesn't have to be vegetarian.

I'll be right back, I think I need to make some lunch.
...(Belly rumbles)...

How about rasaam soup? Lentils, chili powder in a vegetarian soup stock, with fennel seeds. The trick is to cook the lentils so long that they completely fall apart.

How about a Tomato & Chickpea stew:

Fresh tomatoes, chopped and skinned (or tinned if lazy, but not as good)

A couple of chopped onions, chopped garlic, fried.

Cooked chickpeas, lots of chopped parsley, a squeeze of lemon juice and a pinch of cayenne.

Cook together and serve with couscous or bulgar/burghal wheat.



or:


Lentils & spinach

Red, green or brown work equally well, just different.

Pre-cook lentils.

Chop and cook fresh spinach (although frozen will do)

Fry onion, garlic, cumin, coriander, salt, pepper in a little olive oil.

Stir together, again with a little lemon juice if you fancy it.


or:


Sweet and spicy baked beans:

canellini or haricot beans cooked until just soft.

Mix together equal parts honey and tomato puree with a little mustard

Fry a chopped onion or two,

mix together adding a cup or two of water, and simmer in the oven.

Richard

Borlotti or Haricot beans in red wine

Cook pre-soaked beans in half red wine and water with a couple of cloves and a roughly chopped onion. When cooked add fried garlic, chopped thyme, parsley salt and pepper. Simmer for a bit longer and thicked with a little cream or flour if you wish.

Canellini/Haricot/flagolet beans with sage

Cook beans, mix with finely chopped tomatoes, garlic and plenty of chopped sage (dried will do). Add a little salt and pepper. Simmer for a short while.


Chickpeas, penne & pasta.

A true carbohydrate dream.

Cooked Penne Or other pasta

tinned chickpeas

pesto

Mix together serving hot with a little parmesan.


Richard

OK, Fellers. I have a pound of mixed pinto and red beans soaking right now. In the morning, I will decide which recipe to use.

Yup, the wife is away, so I'll be cooking today. We'll be having fresh bread too. Yeehaaaaw; boiled beans and fresh bread. It'll be just like cowboy days.

Just cook 'em up! :thumbup:

Quote:

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"Flame On"

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Hold it! Not around me! (Ooop! 'Scuse me! :blush: )

Pintos, Northerns, or Pintos and Northerns. Tomatoes and/or tomato sauces. Garlic. Onions. Salt. Anything labeled "spice".
Leftovers. Wine. Beer. Wine and Beer. Beer and Wine. Other stuff.

Can't understand why the kids won't eat 'm...

:thumbup:

Well, I found a winner and it is too easier than opening up a can of VanCamps:

In a pot or slow cooker, cover one pound of dried beans with 2 inches of water.

Boil slowly until the beans are tender (soaking them overnight reduces the cooking time).

When beans are tender, add a cup of your favorite barbecue sauce to the beans and stir.

Sheesh, it was easy and delicious. Even the kids ate them (and I didn't have to serve them left-over beer or wine like Pete suggested).

Here's my favorite bean - definitely uncommon and probably not easy to find in the midwest:

natto (fermented soy bean) on steaming-hot, white rice with a dash of mustard and soy sauce, chopped green onions and topped with nori (dried seaweed).

In old Japan samurai would pack natto and rice as field rations on their grueling battle campaigns.

It's a snap to prepare but is an acquired taste and definitely not appealing to kids!

I like natto, but it isn't easy to find here.

You said it is a snap to prepare. How do you make it? A friend of mine made some, but it took fermentation with some special enzyme with temperature control.

Wow, Mike, I didn't expect you'd heard of natto let alone like it!

I must confess that I don't ferment my own soy beans - it takes 3 days to prepare. I just buy the frozen, pre-cooked 3-pack individual portions that you can only find in asian food markets that carry a variety of Japanese and Korean items (I don't how samurai survived without convenience stores!) I pop a packet in the microwave for 30 seconds and mix it on hot rice with the mustard, soy sauce and green onions. Makes a filling snack itself or a side rice dish to accompany a full Japanese meal.

If you'd like to try fermenting your own, I found this website:

http://www.bento.com/tr-natt.html

Good luck and don't light any matches nearby!
:p

Hey, that's really neat. Thanks for the websight on how to make natto.

We have Asian grocery stores here, but they are all run by Vietnamese, so there is a lot of fish sauce and canned fruit at hand, but very little Japanese food and certainly no natto.

When I go to Japan, I usually buy at least a dozen packages of natto to bring home to the USA.

From what I understand, natto was a way to keep soybeans edible through the winter without drying them. The beans were cooked and then wrapped in rice stalks. The rice stalks contained the natural enzyme that transformed the beans into the gooey natto.

Imagine what it must have been like when the first guy tried natto for the first time. He must have been REALLY hungry. At first glance and on its own, Natto appears to be what it really is - slightly rotten beans.

I'm intrigued. What does it taste like? I've tried Tempeh, and love Miso paste on chargrilled Aubergine.

Richard

The taste of Natto is very difficult to describe.

This is one thing that does NOT "taste like chicken".

The texture is one of soft small beans in a gooey slippery gravy.

My first taste of natto left me feeling that it was somewhat caustic in nature. Strangely, though, it does become appealing - enough so that people buy it and eat it.

My first experience with natto was about 20 years ago as a university student in Japan. I lived in a very traditional men's boarding house. Every morning they served ONLY white boiled rice and tea - nothing else.

One morning, the mess hall was filled with an excited frenzy as the fellows were gleefully receiving tiny boxes of some kind of "treat" from a table next to the rice bucket. Not wanting to miss out on the action, I grabbed a box too. As is custom in Japanese dining etiquette, the boys emptied the brown sticky contents onto their bowls of rice and literally inhaled huge gulps of the mixture without stopping to breath until the bottom of the bowl was revealed. Reflecting infamous Japanese efficiency, they held the rice bowls right up to their lips and shoveled the rice almost directly into their throats. The scoffing and slurping noises made by the diners almost suggested that eating natto rice in Japan means bringing oneself as close to choking as possible.

My initial thought was that this stringy goo was some kind of caramel and I anticipated a corresponding rush of sweetness as I put the natto into my mouth. Imagine my shock when the true taste of fermented and half-rotten soy beans clung to my tongue, gums, and cheeks with its onslaught of wicked aromas.

Much like most of the packaged foods we eat...

HERE IS A LITTLE SOMETHING WE MAKE AT THE FIRE STATION
SCALED DOWN TO A 1 PERSON SERVING

1 LG BOIL IN BAG OF RICE
1 CAN OF BLACK BEANS (MEXICAN)
1 TUB SOUR CREAM (WE USE FAT FREE)(ANY SIZE TO YOUR LIKING)
1 LG TOMATO DICED
1 BUNCH OF GREEN ONION AKA SCALLIONS

PLACE THE BEANS ON THE RICE TOP WITH SOUR CREAM THEN ADD TOMATO'S AND SCALLIONS. MAKE A REALLY NICE LOOKING MEAL ALSO. THEN PRIOR TO EATING MIX THEN CONSUME.


HOPE IT HELPS LET ME KNOW WHAT YOU THINK

ROB

This is the miserable fare I was living on in Darwin :

Continental soup mix ( a mix of beans, lentils, and split peas)
Macaroni/pasta shells.

You cook that, then add :

Tom Yum/red curry paste (Thai curry paste)
frozen peas.
chilli powder.
sweet chilli sauce.
powdered chicken soup.
minced garlic.
tinned mackeral (cheapest meat in Australia).

Mix that together. There should be water on top, like a Thai 'soup'.

Looks absolutely disgusting, but it can taste quite good.