food

It sort of depends on what I'm doing with the beans. If I'm just tossing some beans into a tofu scramble or fajitas or some other dish where the beans aren't the main star and are just there for a bit of extra nutrition, then I'll just drain and rinse a can of pintos or black beans or whatever and just toss 'em in and cook long enough so they're hot. Easy.

But, if I'm doing a bowl of beans type situation, or a stew base, then I'll cook dry beans from scratch so I can get that tasty, tasty bean broth. And the way I do it is as follows:

1. Rinse and soak the beans, ideally overnight, but really it's kind of whatever, the less you soak the more you have to cook, is all.

2. (Optional) Cook an onion, some garlic, maybe a bell pepper or a couple of carrots or a couple of sticks of celery, or any other veggies you want to use for background flavor until they're soft. Don't use any salt for this step, but feel free to toss in pepper, any herbs you like, maybe some chili powder or cumin. I usually put a decent amount of oil here too, which both keeps the veggies from sticking and makes the final product tastier. You can use as much or as little oil as you like.

3. Drain the beans out of their soaking liquid and toss in the pot. Add water until you have about 2 inches of water above the beans. Bring to a roiling boil and let it boil for about 10 minutes. (Most beans don't actually need this boiling step, but some varieties will give you some pretty unpleasant stomach pain if you don't boil them, so just do it with all of them to be safe.) No salt yet, add it at the end after the beans are soft. They'll turn out better, I promise.

4. Turn the heat down to a very low simmer, add any other spices, herbs, and what have you, BUT, still no salt and also nothing acidic yet either, no citrus or vinegar. I like cumin, (mexican) oregano, a bay leaf, some chili powder, and pepper, usually, but whatever you want to add is great.

5. Check on them every half hour or so until they're basically done. This will usually take hours and depends heavily on how fresh your beans are. You may also have to add some more water if your beans are thirsty. Try to add hot water rather than cold so you don't slow down the cooking process any slower than it already is. Once they're soft enough for your liking, THEN you can add salt and acid. If you add those things before the beans are soft, they don't soften as much as they should. As far as quantity of salt, the answer is: more than you think. The way I judge it is I taste the broth and I know I've added enough salt when the broth tastes a bit saltier than I actually want the finished product to be.

6. Cook the beans another half hour to hour. This lets them absorb the salt and acid (if you've added any).

And then they're done! Scoop those things into a bowl (with some of the broth!) and eat with bread or tortillas. Or, chop up some veggies and toss them into the pot, turning the whole thing into the best stew you've ever had! Or anything else you want to do with beans, really!

Writing out this recipe makes it seem really long and complicated, but it really isn't. Soak, cook background veggies, toss in beans and water, boil 10 minutes, low simmer until done, adding salt and citrus juice/vinegar at the end and then simmering a little longer.

I hope you make some delicious beans! I love beans!