Yesterday I posted about the most recent report on BPA concerns. I was surprised about BPA as a part of most canned goods.
We really don't use canned goods too often since we try to avoid the high sodium in them (Mr. Cheap and Green has high blood pressure) and we have been trying to avoid preprocessed foods anyway. So eliminated canned goods is kind of a non-issue with us...except for....
BEANS.
We eat a lot of beans. In my cheap efforts, a year or so ago, we bought dried beans and tried soaking them over night. No luck...they were hard as rocks. Tried soaking 2 days. Still no luck. This bean experiment went on for awhile before we gave up eating the hard, kinda chewy, gross beans.
I'd like to go back to the dried beans because of the lower sodium, they're cheaper and we'd avoid the whole canned goods/BPA thing. So, what are we doing wrong? Is our water too hard? Does anyone have any ideas how we can get our beans to an edible state?
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6 comments:
Try making them in the slow cooker. I saw a recipe recently at crockpot365.blogspot.com.
I also make mine in the crockpot. Place them in the night before then cook them on low until you are ready for them the next night!
Wow I've never heard of beans still being hard after a night of soaking! That's what I do with mine: rinse and drain them, then put them in the slow cooker with water to soak overnight. Then in the morning I turn the slow cooker on and they are done by suppertime.
You can also cook them on the stove.
If your water is very hard (rust stains on the porcelain?), a tsp. of baking soda might help. If using, drain and rinse beans before cooking.
Otherwise, second the crockpot recommendations. I usually go for the boiling-water soak in a pot, and drain or not after a couple of hours depending on the sort of bean.
Best of luck!
DSF
http://bokashislope.blogspot.com
Wow, you must have had either bad beans or the hard water thing. I've never had that problem -- although I still dislike the process of soaking, draining, cooking, draining, etc. I usually do the quick-soak method. Rinse and sort the beans, then boil them for about 10 minutes. Soak for two hours before cooking. Cooking times vary, depending on your beans, but I'd say maybe an hour or so?
Sometimes the batch of beans makes a difference too. I had a large bag of pinto beans that all took forever to cook - like three hours on the stove after soaking overnight. I think the beans might have just been older.
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