Saturday, September 17, 2011

1,2,3 Beans!

My friend requested a bean tutorial. I am more than happy to share how I do my beans. It is seriously so cheap.....and healthy!

Beans are so good for you and my favorite thing about them is that they are easy for the little ones to eat before they have gotten all their teeth. My kids all love beans and I think it's because, well, we eat them a lot!

I buy (actually a couple years ago I bought) a whole bunch of dried beans. You may remember this post from my other blog. Glad I did this because lately we have been using a lot of these beans!

Now all I do when I want beans is plan a day ahead of time! This is important. You can't just decide one morning that you want beans for lunch. It takes a day.

Here are the steps:

1. Take your dried beans and pick out with your hands all the not so good looking ones. Also pick out any particles that could have ended up in there.

2. Rinse the beans in cool water. I use a colander.

3. Place the beans into a crock-pot and cover with a good 3 inches of cold water. If you don't have a crock-pot just use a big pot. DO NOT TURN IT ON!

4. Soak the beans in the cold water, in the crock-pot, overnight. In the morning the beans will have absorbed much, if not all, of the water.

5. Pour the beans in a colander in the sink and rinse again with cool water. Rinse off all the bubbles. The bubbles are the gas that will make you toot later. If you don't want to be gassy rinse your beans over and over again.

6. Once the beans are rinsed put them back into the crock-pot and cover with a few inches of cold water again. Cook on low for 8-10 hours or until soft.

7. Now you have cooked beans and your possibilities are endless!

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