Salvaging Beans, Blue Zones, Kombu

Dear Bean Scouts,

First, I wanted to let everyone know that I am working hard on a big post that will be all about beans and the environment. In the mean time, here is a little post to hold everyone over.

I am often asked about beans gone wrong. Sometimes the beans have been in the slow cooker all day and they are still rock hard. Other times they have been soaking for two days and smell fermented. I personally don’t experiment with beans as much as I should, so it is a learning experience each time a new problem arises. These anecdotes, which I collect from you all, help to make me a better bean cook. And I would like to pass some tips on to you, maybe someday this advice will help you salvage a pot of beans.

If you have been cooking your beans for a long time and they are still rock hard, consider the following. Have you added any acidic ingredients? Tomatoes, vinegar, lime, and lemon juice will keep your beans from cooking properly. If any of these ingredients are in your pot, adding baking soda will raise the pH and help your beans cook swiftly. The beans may fizz when you add the baking soda, and any foam should be skimmed off.

If you forgot you were soaking beans, and when you come back to them they are slimy and smell fermented, do the following. Boil them, rinse them off, and then cook them. They should turn out.

Also, this month, I have been very interested in Blue Zones. Bean Scout Tommy turned me on to them, and now I am voraciously devouring Blue Zone wisdom. Blue Zones are places with a significant number of people older than one hundred years, called centenarians. Researchers and explorers are interested in drawing connections between these enclaves, to find ways of extending human life, and one similarity between all of these places is that legumes are a corner stone of their diets. Check it out! http://www.bluezones.com/

Finally, I have been cooking a lot with kombu. Kombu is a kind of seaweed that has a lot of umami and a lot of iodine. The cooking process eliminates most of the iodine, leaving behind a strong umami base note to your pot of beans.

Enjoy

More Pressure Cooking, Umami Bombs, Tepary Beans

Dear Bean Scouts, Since I last wrote I have been using the pressure cooker exclusively, and have made 2 batches of black beans, 2 batches of Lonesome Whistle Farm’s red jewel beans, a batch of garbanzos, and a batch of pintos. I have become very comfortable with the pressure cooker, and am thoroughly enjoying how easy it is to prepare a batch of well done beans. It has also changed the way I prepare beans. I pressure cook the beans with a little bit of oil and salt, and then when the cycle is complete I add in sautéed onions, garlic, spices, and other ingredients. I then let them sit on the stove top for a while before packing them up.

I have also been enjoying plain beans that have been reheated with different ingredients of the stove. One strategy I have been working on is the umami bomb. Umami is the flavor of glutamic acid, an amino acid. Umami is a comforting and filling flavor, common in animal products, mushrooms, soy, tomatoes, and dark greens. I have been experimenting with adding many different umami loaded ingredients, like sun-dried tomatoes, soy sauce, capers, greens, and parmesan cheese to my beans, in small doses, so they all act together to enrich the dish. It has been quite nice.

My other big interest recently has been tepary beans, Phaseolus acutifolius. Tepary beans are from the Southwest of the USA to Costa Rica, and are probably the most drought tolerant legume on the planet. I am interested in varietals that can be dry farmed in the PNW. If you know of any interesting heirloom tepary varietals, please let me know.

Finally this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pB4ASdELBbQ Peace, Matt

Inspiration, Pressure Cooker, Philosophy

Hello loyal bean scouts! I am sorry that I have been remiss in my twice a month publishing schedule. However, there is no reason to fear, for I am back with a brand new edition of Matt’s Bean Blog. The reason for this lapse in writing is mostly a lack of inspiration. I feel like I have been running through the bean routine without exploring new possibilities. However, I have been getting some inspiration from:

My Great Aunt: who suggested that I should bake beans at low temperatures, with vegetables, sauces, and spices, to marry the flavors.

Crescent Dragonwagon: who wrote an excellent cookbook called “Bean by Bean”. Now I finally know why Pythagoras didn’t want to eat beans/touch bean plants (he thought human souls traveled through the stems of bean plants on their way to Hades). She also suggests that beans started the Renaissance, because they improved Europe’s soils and diets.

Experimenting with a Pressure Cooker: fun and terrifying.

To increase my inspiration, my doctor prescribed you, my bean community, to open new doors and windows into the great world of legumes. Please, write me (matthewcdavis1@gmail.com) so that I can continue to grow as a bean scout.

Pressure cookers are awesome in the traditional sense of the word. They inspire in me an overwhelming feeling of reverence, admiration, and fear.  When I cook beans in a pressure cooker, I cannot look at the beans, stir the beans, touch the beans, or taste the beans, and this is difficult for me. I can only look on the great vibrating pot with awe, my nose firmly planted on the stove top, fearing at any moment the vessel will explode, covering me in shrapnel and boiling bean bits. However, pressure cookers are also miracle workers. They cook beans in just minutes and use one fifth the energy of conventional cooking. In a world of intense energy consumption, they allow us to do that first and most important “R”, reduce. I cannot recommend pressure cookers enough, but you should definitely approach them as you would approach a dragon, with caution and respect.

Finally, I would like to talk about another one of my bean philosophies, and that is the philosophy of gorging. One problem many people have with vegetarian diets is plants don’t seem to fill people up in the same way that meat does. I believe the reason for this is that plant matter contains a lot more roughage (indigestible fiber) and a lot less protein, calories, and fat than animal products contain. My solution is to eat more when I am consuming legumes, vegetables, and whole grains than I would if I were eating meat or dairy. I am not a nutritionist, and am definitely not qualified to give dietary advice, but here is some data that I have collected from the USDA website.

An 8 ounce chuck eye steak has 56 grams of protein (all the protein that you will need in a day*), 627 kilocalories (31% of the calories you need in a day*) and 19 grams of saturated fat (all the saturated fat you need in a day*). On the other hand, 8 ounces of black beans has 15 grams of protein (29% of what you will need in a day*), 227 kilocalories (11% of your daily calorie intake*) and 0 grams of saturated fat.

*Percent Daily Values are based on a 2,000 calorie diet. Your daily values may be higher or lower depending on your calorie needs.

To recap, you must eat over four times the amount of beans to get the same amount of protein that you receive from steak, and you must eat 3 times as the amount of beans to get the same number of calories. So to fill up on a vegetarian diet, you are probably going to have to eat a larger amount of food.

Thank you so much for reading. I hope to hear from you!

Legumecon; Common Bean Chili; Hummus

“You should quote me in your bean blog!” – Bean Scout Tomcat, Honorable Host of Legumecon 2015.

Hello everyone, welcome back to that notorious blog about beans, Matt’s Bean Blog. It has wafted into your living room or kitchen and now you must stew in its enticing odors.

Speaking of enticing odors, the first ever Legumecon happened on the seventh, and it was an event to behold. Our twelve attendees concocted 9 dishes utilizing eight different species in the Fabaceae. We had Moroccan garbanzo bean soup from bean scout Amy, adzuki bean red paste pancakes from scouts Tomcat and Jesscat, black eyed peas with bacon from bean scout Tanja, garbanzo bean hummus from bean scouts Lucas and Dandy Alese, lentil dal from bean scout Paoa, common bean cowboy chili from scouts Melvyn and Daniel, tempeh roast from bean scout Roo, peas and cauliflower from bean scout Kay, and I brought ful made with fava beans. Kay also brought beet salad. We all ate too much and enjoyed each other’s company. Some scouts forgot their beer at my house. Now I am drinking their beer. I planned to take photos of everyone with their bean dishes, but it didn’t happen. One funny thing, out of everyone who attended I was the only person who used canned beans, a fact I hope no one brings up at my enthronement ceremony.

Note: Roo mentioned to me that he adds 1 tablespoon of honey to his crack sauce when he prepares it for tempeh roast. I went back and edited both recipes.

Now I would like to share some of the recipes I was able to write down.

Dandy’s Garbanzo Hummus:

4 cups of slow cooked garbanzo beans

1/8 – 1/4 cup of olive oil

1/2 a cup of fresh squeezed lemon juice

2 tablespoons of soy sauce

6 cloves of garlic

2 tablespoons of tahini (more for additional bitterness)

salt to taste

paprika

Food process everything but the garbanzo beans and paprika first. If you don’t then the garlic will not properly blend. Once you have made these ingredients into a paste add the garbanzo beans and blend together into paste. Sprinkle paprika on top when served.

Recently Tommy and I replaced the garlic and lemon juice in this hummus recipe with 5 tbs of apple cider vinegar and a hunk of ginger about the size of the top half of my thumb. It is a very tasty substitution.

Daniel and Melvyn’s Common Bean Chili

1 yellow onion

2 tablespoons of soy sauce

2 poblano chilies

4 skinned romas

1 cup of black beans (presoaked)

1 cup of pinto beans (presoaked)

2 cups of red beans (presoaked)

2 cans of corn

2 cups of chopped mushrooms

3 cups of black coffee

4 tablespoons of Daniel’s spice blend (4tbs of chili powder, 3 tbs of garlic powder, 1 tbs of cumin, 1/2 tbs of black pepper)

Saute onion, soy sauce, poblanos, and romas together. Add seasoning mix. Add coffee and cook down into paste. Add beans (presoaked) and cover with water. Bring to boil. Once boiling bring to simmer. Add corn and mushrooms. Salt to taste.

That is it for this post. I hope you enjoyed.

Matt

Delicious Black Beluga Lentils; Tempeh Roast

“Lentils and leeks belong together.” – Bean Guru Amy, paraphrased

Gonna end the year with some great recipes for you to try in the next year. I hope that 2015 is a great year, full of legumes for everyone.

First, I made some delicious black beluga lentils:

4 Cups Black Beluga Lentils, soaked, in soaking water

more water

1 leek, diced

1 yellow onion, diced

salt

black pepper

1 tablespoon of Herbes de Provence

olive oil

Take a large bean pot. Heat on medium on the stove. Heat olive oil. Add onions and leeks, cook til translucent. Add Herbes de Provence. Cook a little more. Add soaked lentils, with soaking water, to the pot. Add enough water that the lentils are covered. Bring to a boil and then simmer until cooked. Salt and pepper to taste. So good!

 

Next, Guru Roo has a recipe for Tempeh Roast. Tempeh is a fermented soy product that was invented in Indonesia. Here is his recipe:

1 block of Surata tempeh, 12 ounces

1 yellow onion

1 sweet potato

1 potato

2 carrots

2 celery sticks

1 delicata squash

1 rutabaga

1 granny smith apples

3/4 cup of walnuts

3/4 cup of cranberry

1 garlic head, whole cloves

crack sauce (see blog post two) (Roo recommends adding 1 tablespoon of honey to your crack for this recipe)

Chop everything but the walnuts, cranberry, garlic, and crack into cubes between 1 cm and 1 inch. Place all ingredients but the crack into a large baking pot or pan. Mix all ingredients together with crack sauce, enough to coat all surfaces. Bake for 1&1/2 to 2 hours at 350F.

 

Solstice Beans

Happy Winter Solstice everyone! Time to get excited about the new year, still full of possibilities. Also, time to share the bounty of this year! Maybe there is someone in your life who you would like to give the gift of beans? Here is a list of some of my favorite bean merchants.

Rancho Gordo (ranchogordo.com): You all should remember Steve Sando from my second blog post. His beans are superior in flavor. I highly recommend the Royal Corona beans. However, his beans are on the pricey side.

Palouse Brand (http://palousebrand.com/index.html): The Palouse in Eastern Washington is probably the most fertile place in the Pacific Northwest. It is home to National Lentil Festival, and is the largest producer of lentils in the USA.

Hummingbird Wholesale (http://hummingbirdwholesale.com/): Hummingbird Wholesale sells delicious beans, many of which are grown in the Willamette Valley.

Camas Country Mill (http://camas.squarespace.com/shop-camas-country/): Camas Country Mill is part of the bean and grain revival that is happening in the Willamette Valley. For many years, the valley was covered with mills and canneries to process beans and grain (grown here). However, grass seed and cover crop seed are now king throughout much of the valley. Creating a sustainable local food system is the goal of the  Southern Willamette Valley Bean & Grain Project, and Camas Country Mill is a big part of this transformation. So support them!

Bob’s Red Mill (http://www.bobsredmill.com/): Up in Milwaukee (Oregon), Bob’s Red Mill distributes beans from all over the nation.

Zursun Idaho Heirloom Beans (http://www.zursunbeans.com/beans/): purveyor of heirloom beans!

Happy Holidays!

Flavor

“A gassy gut is a happy gut” – Bean Scout Matt.

“This should have been posted yesterday” – Bean Scout Matt.

Some beans are, with minimum additional ingredients, wonderful. All they need is a little fat and a little salt. I am thinking of heirloom beans that have been bred for flavor. Others, bred for industrial processing and yields, may need some help. Additional ingredients can be used to spice up a bland pot of beans. I like to think of each of these by category, some of which are more necessary than others.

Salt: Some people don’t use salt, and for a few years I tried not to add any to my beans. I refer to these years as my ascetic years. However, I have come to appreciate salt; they make a pot of beans bold. There is a lot of debate as to when to add salt to a pot of beans, and I will wade into this discussion. I recommend adding salt at the end of cooking, so you can salt to taste. Sometimes I will use soy sauce, tamari, or miso to replace some or all the salt.

Oil: Lard, butter, bacon, plant oils, they all work. I use oil at the beginning of cooking to saute onions, garlic, and some spices. Then at the end of cooking I will add some more to taste.

Herbs: I almost always saute onions and garlic in my bean pot before adding the beans and water. Other herbs like oregano and epazote are classic additions to beans. If I am making four cups of dried beans in a pot I will usually add one whole onion, five cloves of garlic, one tablespoon of hand crushed Mexican or Indian oregano, and one tablespoon of Herbes de Provence (before adding the beans of course). Towards the end of cooking I will add a tablespoon of chili powder (like chipotle or ancho). However, there are so many other spices that you can use. I have tried Lapsang Souchong tea, cumin, coriander, curry, cinnamon, mustard, basil, sage, marjoram, ginger, mint, parsley. And don’t stop there, your only limit is your creativity. If you are trying make a bean dish that evokes a particular region of the world I would recommend using the spices of that region. Handy charts here: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-2675345/Cook-worlds-cuisines-using-just-THREE-ingredients-Infographic-reveals-staple-foods-used-globe.html

Acid: If you decide to add acid to a pot of beans ALWAYS ADD IT AT THE END OF COOKING. Lemon, lime, vinegar, tomato paste, salsa, wine. Acid will help round out your dish, almost always recommended.

Sweet: Baked beans and other recipes add sugar. I have never used sweeteners, but I will try it some day and get back to y’all.

Umami: Considered by some to be the fifth taste, umami is “pleasant savory taste”. This flavor comes from fish, shellfish, cured meats, vegetables (like tomatoes and greens), mushrooms, and fermented foods (cheese, miso, soy sauce, fish sauce).

SO MUCH MORE: Greens, squash, other vegetables, meat, hominy, corn, anything. Let your imagination go wild!

 

Recipe: Bean breakfast strata: toast, beans, fried egg, salt, arugula, hot sauce; in that order, from bottom to top.

Signing off!

Steve Sando Video; More about Fava Beans

Greetings Bean Scouts. Video:

Two blog posts ago I wrote about Fava Beans, and I gave a recipe for Ful Medames, using canned fava beans. I recently tried to make Ful Medames using medium sized fava beans and it failed, so I am going to have to get my hands on some smaller fava beans and try again. In the mean time this would be a good moment to bring up favism. I have been getting a lot of questions about this recessive genetic condition, so I will explain it, by paraphrasing wikipedia. Favism is also know as Glucose-6-phosphate dehydrogenase deficiency and people with this condition have low levels of Glucose-6-phosphate dehydrogenase (from now on know as G6PD). G6PD deficiency is a very common human enzyme defect, it is most prevalent in people with Mediterranean, South Asian and African ancestries, is found almost exclusively in men, and may protect against malaria. Having a G6PD deficiency doesn’t necessarily mean that you have favism, and favism is more common in children with the deficiency than it is with adults. Fava beans contain high levels of the alkaloid oxidants vicine, divicine, and convicine, which cause oxidative stress. In people with G6PD deficiency, these oxidants can cause red blood cells to burst, leading to anemia among other symptoms. Fava beans should also be avoided by people using monoamine oxidase inhibitors and the thick skins have tannins that could have an inhibitory affect on enzymes. If this post is starting to seem spookier than my last post, you should also know that fava beans contain l-dopa, a substance that may prevent hypertension and is also used in treating Parkinson’s. As Paracelsus said, “Everything is poison and nothing is without poison.” So maybe it is important to not rely too heavily on any particular kind of bean.

A Scary Hallobean Story

Bean scouts, I have a tale for you. Be warned, this is not for the weak of stomach. PARENTAL ADVISORY!

 

 

Your stomach rumbles. You are sitting in the back seat of a ’96 Previa minivan, bouncing up a gravel road, potholes barely avoided by your overenthusiastic driver.

“We should have gotten McDonalds,” you grumble.

The driver, Stevie, throws a bag of candy back towards you. His lack of focus on the road leads him straight into a deep pothole.

SCHREESH!

You hear the car bottom out. Stevie hits the breaks. Everyone flies forward and now hot blood is running down your face.

“God damnit, we should just go home! This is crazy!” Your voice, full of shock, has a mind of its own and is revealing your inner fear of what awaits you at the top of the hill.

Cindy, sitting next to you now, is searching for a tissue. She applies it to your nose, lots of pressure. You grab the tissue and turn, blocking her from your nose.

“Dude,” Stevie says coolly, “Calm the fuck down. This is going to be, like, fucking great.”

He starts the van back up and continues up the hill. You look out the window sulking. Cindy tries to cheer you up.

“Come on, there is nothing to be scared of,” she says, smiling.

You play it cool, “Yeah, I know. Low blood sugar.”

The van continues up the road, but since bottoming out it now grumbles and whines occasionally, breaking up the silence.

 

The fog dies away as you reach the top of the hill, and through the trees you get glimpses of your home for the night. An old derelict castle, built by an eccentric timber baron in the 19th century, forgotten until Stevie ran into while mushroom hunting in these woods. He quickly spread the word through his inner circle of friends, and had the bright idea of getting a group together to spend Halloween night in this abandoned fortress.

The car dies at the gate.

“Fuck!” Stevie starts pounding on the steering wheel. You can see he is getting manic, he really wanted this spooky evening to go smoothly.

“Jeeze man, chill out,” says Carter, “We have cell phones, we can call my brother in the morning.”

 

Everyone gets out of the van. You drop the bloody tissue on the ground and inspect your face in the passenger side mirror. You quickly pick  the coagulated blood out from under your nose and look back up. Everyone has gotten ahead of you. They are examining the old castle with flashlights. It is smaller than you thought it would be, only two stories, with four tower battlements, one on each corner. The exterior is in surprisingly good shape, the old granite slabs are barely pitted, even after all of these years.

“This barely counts as a castle,” you mutter under your breath. You jog to catch up.

Cindy opens the door slowly.

“GGAAAAHHHHHH!” her scream stops your heart, and the world slows down. You start to fall, your knees have given out. Then you see her turn around, a smile on her face.

She giggles and then enters the old building. Stevie looks down at you and shakes his head.

“Man, you are really letting me down tonight,” he says. You feel sheepish.

 

You follow everyone into the castle, and look around. You are in the great room. The floor boards are burnt in places and rotted in others, and two spiral staircases lead to a gallery upstairs. The room is unfurnished and musty. Everyone has split up, exploring the castle on their own, and you walk into the kitchen area. On a lark, you open one of the cupboards, and sitting in front of you is an old bag of dried beans. They are dusty and a dull red color. Carter comes in.

“Beans never go bad right?” you ask, continuing to look at the bag.

He walks over to you and sees the bag.

“Dude!” he exclaims, “Haha, you got hella balls man, you are crazy! Hey Stevie!”

He runs out of the kitchen, looking for Stevie.

He returns with Stevie. “Check this out man, your cousin is going to eat these beans!”

You see this as a chance to get back some of your cred. You nod your head. Stevie looks at you.

“Dude, are you going to eat them raw or something? You got to cook them first, and there is no way you can cook beans that old. I read it on a bean blog.”

“I will find a way!” you say. Eating these beans is now your obsession, and you look around for something to cook them on. The stove doesn’t work, but the tap does. You find an old pot. Now you just have to make a fire.

“Hang on, I will be right back!” you yell, and leave the kitchen, looking for something to burn. Stevie looks at you in disbelief and Carter is grinning.

 

You run up the flight of stairs and explore the rooms until you come across the library. Cindy is in there, leafing through a musty book. She sees the manic look on your face.

You start making a stack of books, ripping out any dry pages you can find.

“Making a fire?” she asks.

“Hehe, yes, and then I am going to make some beans!”

She hands you the book she was reading. “You might want this then.”

You look at the title.

THE NECROBEANICON

“There is a recipe in there for bringing old beans back to life,” she whispers.

You open the book and find the incantation. You whisper it and a chill runs down your spine. You hear screams coming from down below. You and Cindy look at each other. You both know something has gone horribly wrong. Then together, you run down the stairs.

 

In the kitchen you see Carter. His face is contorted into a scream, and his belly is missing. The room is covered with bits of blood and flesh. You feel nauseous and dizzy, and fall to the ground.

 

When you wake up you vomit, look up. Carter is still there, but no one is in the room with you. You crawl away, into the great room, and try to stand up. You look around and then you see them. Those red beans from earlier, glowing, floating, dripping. You gasp and they fly down your open throat. You stand up and stick your finger down your throat, desperately flicking. You feel gassy, and let out a low diabolical fart. Your mid section has filled up with gas, produced as your belly desperately tries to digest these old, undercooked beans. You swell like a watermelon and then you burst.

 

Moral: Don’t try and revive century old beans.

Just Fava Beans

Many moons ago I started growing fava beans. More appropriately I started having my Grandfather grow fava beans for me while I traveled around the country (I do sort of a migrant worker thing). Fava beans are incredibly easy to grow here in Oregon, they overwinter, they don’t need a lot of extra water (they get most of what they need from the sky), and they grow tall enough to shade out many weeds. I was really excited about them, because they are so easy to grow, but then I tried to cook them. They are a really pain to prepare because they have thick skins, which need to be removed, and once you have removed the skins and cooked them you have a fairly unappetizing mush. I made it a goal to find a delicious way of preparing these beans.

This goal was promptly put on the back burner and forgotten about. Then one day I was at a Lebanese restaurant with my friends Eileen and Daniel and I saw a dish of fava beans on the menu called ful medames. I ordered it, nervous because I had never liked the flavor of favas before, but let me tell you that ful medames was one of the best bean dishes I have ever eaten.

A little bit about ful medames. Ful is the Arabic word for bean and medames probably comes from the Coptic word for buried. Another name for this dish is ful hammans, which means bath beans. This name references how communities that were poor in fuel would use the residual heat from communal baths to cook these beans overnight (way to be efficient). Then, in the morning, the beans were served for breakfast. The dish is still widely popular over parts of the Middle East and is the national dish of Egypt. Important: if you want to make ful medames, you have to buy the ful medames fava beans, which were bred to be part of this dish. These beans are smaller than the European variety that is grown in Oregon, and they have thinner skins. They are hard to find outside of import stores (I got mine at Barbur World Foods on Barbur Boulevard). It wasn’t until this week, over a year after I had the beans at the restaurant with Eileen and Daniel that I finally cooked them myself. Here is my ful recipe.

2 cups of cooked ful medames (bath beans or buried beans, smaller than European fava beans)

2 tablespoons of lemon juice (I want to try using a vinegar next time, for a ful that uses only ingredients from Oregon)

1 teaspoon of cumin (no idea what I would use in its place)

1 teaspoon of cayenne pepper

1-2 cloves of raw garlic, minced

1 tablespoon of dry parsley flakes

Olive oil

Salt and pepper

Heat up ful medames, mash a bit if desired. Once heated, add lemon juice, cumin, cayenne pepper, garlic, parsley, salt, pepper, and olive oil. Serve with pita.

Warning: Garlic will alter breath

Of course this is a soft recipe, and can be changed for taste. The fava beans give you a rich bean flavor, the oil and lemon juice are essential, and the spices are exciting! I got my beans from a can (I know right!) but will be attempting to cook them from dried beans soon. Until next time!