Lately, our ward, stake, and entire church has been focusing on self-reliance. It encompasses many different aspects in our lives, but is so beneficial to being at peace with the many crazy things going on in the world today.
I decided to improve some of my cooking self reliant skills and decided to cook with dry pinto beans. I am always nervous to try these things. Growing up my mom was excellent at cooking from scratch and her food storage, but you I never know if I am really doing it right.
To cook the beans, I first picked the rocks out of them(Very fresh straight from the field, Justin still found a rock in his taco soup though, I will do a better job next time). I soaked them over night in a large pot of water. The next morning I drained the beans and put them in a crock pot on high for four hours.
When I came home that night they were ready to go. I made a large pot of taco soup and still had some beans left over so I made homeade refried beans. It was a very 'high fiber' weekend full of beans. I really liked the refried beans, I thought they had more taste to them than the regular old canned refried beans.
I just read on a canning blog that you can also can your own beans. I may have to try this this fall. So, if you are nervous about cooking with beans, don't be! They are pretty simple, cheap, and really yummy!
Justin and Ruth Blazzard
So we need to talk about this in more depth later. I can't wait for you to teach me!!
ReplyDeleteI agree, beans are cheap and easy to cook with. canning sounds like a good idea too, I bet if you can can your own homemade chili it would be LOADS better than the store bought stuff.
ReplyDeleteBean flour would probably be good to use too...soup thickener...I wonder how it would taste in bread....would it be a good substitute for wheat flour if you were allergic to gluten?
Hmmmmmmm....
Our ward has been doing more with self-reliance too. Good time to build up a food storage and learning how to cook with it. Your mom is such a good example of how to do that, you are so lucky to have learned so much from her :)