Beans Again?

Beans, beans Part 3

Now that you have sorted, washed, and soaked your beans they are ready to cook. Check my Article titled “Because My Mother Said So”, postedApril 26, 2012, found at (bigeyedcooks.com).

Most beans will swell up in volume to about 2 ½ to 3 times their dried volume. A 2 pound package will cook up to be a large pot of beans serving 12 or more. One exception I only recently discovered is black beans. I cooked a pot of black beans for the first time a few months ago and discovered three things;

• They don’t require as much water (I ended up with black bean soup). Soup is good.
•  They only increase their volume by about 1 or 1 ½ times; (next time I will cook 2 packages).
• They don’t require as much cooking time (about 2 or 3 hours as opposed to at least 4 or more hours for most other beans).

All beans should cook 45 minutes to 1 hour before adding any seasonings. I was told this makes the beans turn out tender. I don’t know how valid this statement is but I just always do it this way because my mother said so. I don’t know how to tell if a bean is tender. If it’s cooked, it’s tender. Right? Also old beans tend to need longer cooking time. This I know from personal experience.

When my mother started low sodium cooking, she used 2 tablespoons of plain white vinegar and only 1 or 2 teaspoons of salt for a large pot of beans (a 2 cup package of dried beans). I’ve used this method for many years for any large pot type of recipe. The vinegar seems to intensify the salt taste in soups, stews, and beans with no vinegar taste. When cooking a smaller quantity of beams use only 1 tablespoon of vinegar and 1 teaspoon of salt.

Next segment will cover what should I do with all these beans and why should I do all this work? 

You must believe in and want the results of your endeavor otherwise you will not do what is necessary to overcome the negatives..

Sherry Pope, Author of Easy See Easy Cook, a specialty cookbook designed for people with vision problems. For information about the cookbook and how to order it, please visit bigeyedcooks.com.