Here’s my idiot moment of the season:
We grew beans this year. We had an amazingly large bounty. We ate them raw, or broiled, or steamed. We froze some. We dehydrated some. When we were sick of looking at them, we let what I thought were a “few” remaining pods hang on and dry on the vine (is it a vine?) so that we could save seeds for next year.
Except… once we went to pick them, I realized we had a nice hunk of dried beans. I started thinking that we actually had enough to make a meal of beans. It never occurred to me that we could have that sort of yield.
Max and I shelled the beans together and it was so much fun to share that activity with him.
Now, I must admit…. I don’t cook with dried beans. I didn’t grow up with them. I tried doing them in the slow cooker earlier this year and the meal was inedible. No flavor, didn’t cook through. But I really wanted to do our crop justice, so I was going to try again.
I again went the slow cooker route, but I added more ingredients for flavor. At the end of the cooking time — still no flavor. So, I found a recipe for boston baked beans and I mixed up the sauce and cooked it with the beans in the oven for maybe an hour. I rescued the beans… and they tasted great. Cooked through, lots of flavor. Max ate them! I even made use of the leftovers by adding them to a shredded pork soup.
…I promised an idiot moment, didn’t I? Well, it was probably a good week later that I realized that I totally forgot to save ANY of the beans as seeds for next year. I guess I’ll have to order it online again and hope that I get the right variety. DOh!
