So You Forgot To Soak The Beans?

So many beautiful beans in the world...

This is a perpetual issue for me - I can remember to get dinner going early enough, but I think I have remembered to give my beans am overnight soak maybe half a dozen times in my adult life. For years this frequently prevented me from cooking bean recipes.

Finally I read Mark Bittman's How To Cook Everything, in which he does not insist on pre-soaking beans.

"[The myth of soaking beans...] is the most egregious, and the most harmful , because it has given millions of people the idea that beans must be prepared well in advance. Although soaking speeds cooking, it does not do so significantly. If you soak most beans overnight you will shave fifteen to thirty minutes off the cooking time."

(Bittman; How to Cook Everything; pg. 500)

Equipped with his ideas I began to explore cooking beans in a satisfactory and short-sighted way that works for me.

Bittman's recommendation is to cover the beans with water, bring to a boil, cover loosely, and simmer (stirring occasionally) till done.

I tried this with several types of beans and found it worked, but didn't quite cook the beans to my taste. My adaptations work as follows:

Warm water in a tea kettle and pour over rinsed beans. Lid the soaking beans and let sit for 30 minutes or more. Strain and rinse.

Stove Top:
Put the beans, a teaspoon of baking soda (I use about one teaspoon per cup if dry beans - very approximate) and ample water in the cooking pan. Turn on high heat. Bring to a boil, reduce heat to medium low and simmer till the beans are tender. This should be between 30 and 60 minutes, depending on the beans. I never time them, but instead check them periodically.

Slow Cooker:
Place the beans, baking soda, and ample water in the slow cooker. I then turn mine to high for 6 hours. This might make my beans a little mushy, but I usually check them frequently throughout the day if I am home and turn the cooker off when they are done.

This works especially well with fresh beans, such as the heirlooms I have been playing with from Lonesome Whistle. And if you are cooking beans, make a double batch. Take half of the soaked beans and freeze them in their soaking water. They are ready to cook when you have even less time than usual!

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As an aside, I highly recommend Bittman's book. It's an excellent go-to for any and (almost) all cooking questions.

Flavlorful, Yet Still Tasteless

I'll just open by stating categorically that my family has an off-the-hook sense of funny. And we'll leave it there.

Last weekend it fell to me to make the birthday cakes for a birthday party for both brothers. They were both in town on the youngster's actual birthday, and the elder had his about 2 weeks prior. So the whole family gathered in a local park and celebrated with fish tacos and cheesecake.

At the library, Brother-Bug and I were perusing the children's cookbooks. We found this excellent book, Gross-Out Cakes, and just had to bring it home. Parts of it are truly disgusting.

I lean more toward wanting to make the Oozing Brain or Severed Arm. I'm not sure I could even begin to stomach eating the Kitty-Litter Cake.

We read through it several times, and finally settled on the Road Kill Cheesecake. We thought it was the least likely to offend anyone who wouldn't find stuff like this hilarious.

One chocolate cheesecake, some icing and sprinkles, a little Lingonberry jam, and a toy deer later...





It was a complete success. Everyone loved it and it was so yummy!

And I highly recommend the book to anyone with kids who love the silly, macabre, or downright disgusting.

Ready to Cook

I unpacked my cookbooks today. Much like unpacking the rest of the books, this goes leagues to making this house feel like home. Now I know this is my kitchen. And now I can feel even better about cooking and meal planning - less at sea.

Open in the cookbook holder (thrift store score!) is our family favorite cookbook: The DK Press Children's Cookbook. It's a great book for soon-to-be-master-chefs. The instructions are clearly written and illustrated with great photos. The ingredients are photo lists as well, so even a pre-reader can follow along and really get messy with a good recipe. We finally bought this book because we had checked it out from the library more than 20 times! So far we have loved every recipe we have tried. Especially the Marinated Chicken. That one is really good.

And it led to a revelation in my head. A busy mom should make children's cookbooks a major recipe source. Why?

1) The recipes are bound to appeal to kids' (sometimes narrow) tastes. So no agonizing over whether or not your kids will eat that risotto. No searching for something "kid friendly". It already is.

2) It's fast. Kids will focus in the kitchen for usually 20-ish minutes. So most of the recipes in a children's cookbook will be fairly quick and basic to prepare.

3) It inspires me to get my son in the kitchen more. If he cooks it, he is more likely to eat it. And a kid in a kitchen gains mad skills! Following instructions, math (measurements, counting, doubling, etc.), chemistry (baking soda, anyone?), safety, nutrition... It's one of the ultimate homeschooling learning centers.

So that's that. Cookbooks are up and easy to reach, especially the children's cookbooks.

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Over at my brother's blog, he wrote a great series about his cookbooks - what he uses and why. As an avid cookbook reader, I loved that series and it was a partial inspiration for this post.