Simple, Cheap and Tasty...What's Not to Like?

I have to be in the mood to make an appetizer—especially if no company is coming for dinner.  But I will make an exception for White Bean Spread because I like it so much.  There are just 4 ingredients, plus some slices of crusty bread, although even stale bread taste good with a dollop of this spread.

If you want to feel like you’re really cooking, you can buy dried white beans and cook them yourself.
That process will take several hours.  Or save yourself the trouble by using a can of cooked white kidney beans, cannellini beans, Great Northern beans or navy beans.

If the idea of making an appetizer seems unnecessary, consider his spread as a sandwich or tortilla filling.  Add some cut-up vegetables and you’re good for lunch or mid-afternoon snack! 

White Bean Spread – serves 4-6 

 1 15-ounce can cooked white kidney beans (aka cannellini), Great Northern or navy
       beans, rinsed and drained (or 1/2 cup of any of the above dried white beans--see
       NOTE below)
1/4 cup olive oil + more if necessary
2 teaspoons finely chopped garlic
1/2 teaspoon salt + more if necessary
1 loaf crusty French bread, sliced into 1/2-inch slices (heated if desired) 

Combine the cooked beans, olive oil, garlic and salt in a food processor and process for about 20 seconds, or until the mixture is almost smooth.  Taste to see if it has been processed enough.  It should be the consistency of mashed potatoes.  If it seems to dry, add a teaspoon of olive oil and process again for 10 seconds.  Continue adding oil until it’s the consistency you like.  Add a bit more salt if needed for flavor but it’s better to under-salt than over-salt. 

Spoon spread over bread and serve. 

NOTE: If using dried beans, half-fill a large pot with water, add the dried beans and bring to a boil.  Reduce the heat to low and cook for about 2 hours, or until the beans have softened.  Drain and proceed with the recipe above.

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The Perfect Substitute: Potato Chips

 

I was making tacos for lunch when I suddenly realized we had eaten all the hummus. What could I use as a replacement alongside the beans and cheese? Then I spotted an open bag of potato chips. Why not crumble some of them and sprinkle on top of the tacos before serving? 

They worked perfectly, adding some crunch. Who needs hummus!

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Pinto Beans: What Are They and How Do I Use Them?

Dried Pinto Beans (left), Cooked Pinto Beans (right)

Anyone who has eaten refried beans has eaten pinto beans.  They are brown—sometimes light brown, sometimes dark brown—and are often speckled.  They are available cooked in cans and uncooked in plastic bags.

Back to Basics: Black Beans

If you find you are cooking more because you are sheltering at home, it’s time to add black beans to your shopping list.  You can buy these beans already cooked in a can, but they are also available uncooked in 1-pound packages.  Sometimes they are sold loose in bins.

How much would you pay for the convenience of cooked beans?

Spice Up the Day with Bean Dip!

I try not to eat a lot between meals, but that’s a problem when my homemade Bean Dip is in the refrigerator.  If my stomach rumbles, I immediately begin thinking about visiting the fridge for just a small spoonful.  Pretty soon none is left.

Appreciating the Corn Tortilla

If you want to get my attention at the grocery store, you have three options:

1) Put up a big sign that says SALE.

2) Place the item prominently near the check-out.

3) Put it next to something I am likely to buy.

Simple, Cheap and Tasty – What’s Not to Like?

I have to be in the mood to make an appetizer—especially if no company is coming for dinner.  But I will make an exception for White Bean Spread because I like it so much.  There are just 4 ingredients, plus some slices of crusty bread, although even stale bread taste good with a dollop of this spread.

If you want to feel like you’re really cooking, you can buy dried white beans and cook them yourself.

Question for Mom

Do I have to soak dry beans before I cook them? –Natalie T.

No.  Not soaking beans means they will take a bit longer to soften during cooking – maybe 3 hours instead of 45 minutes-to-2 hours.  The longer you cook them, the more chance they will boil dry and burn in the pot.  Yes, I confess I have done that.  But that could have also happened had I soaked them first, so keep the heat low and check them often.

However, there is a good reason to soak dry bean.  Soaking reduces the possibility of flatulence. Here’s what the University of Nebraska website says about soaking and cooking dry beans:

Question for Mom

Top Bean=No String, Bottom Beans=Strings

Do I have to trim both ends of green beans before cooking them? – Harold G.

The simple answer is no.  Some people don’t bother to trim the stem end, but it’s a little tough. I prefer to snap or cut off about 1/2 inch of that end.  Normally I leave the other end in place. 

But there is one big exception.  If the green beans have tough strings along the edges, it’s a good idea to pull off and discard these strings.  To do that, snap off one end of the bean and carefully pull the string away.  Then snap off the other end and pull the string off the other edge.  

                                                    See all Questions for Mom

Edamame: What Is It and How Do I Cook It?

For a long time I thought edamame was another name for fava beans because the two look very much alike.  Then I did some research and found that edamame is actually an immature soybean.  The beans grow in pods, which are picked before they have fully ripened.  A popular snack in Japan, edamame is a good source of soy protein.

Fresh edamame may be available in Asian markets.  You are likely to find fresh and cooked edamame in the freezer or refrigerated section of supermarkets.

When an Interesting Recipe Is Not Worth Trying

Black Bean Lasagna

What finally prompted me to throw an interesting new recipe into the trash was this sentence: “Refrigerate the dough for 2 hours.”

Reinventing a Classic Vegetable

Gugarati Green Beans

Sometimes cooking a traditional vegetable a different way makes me think I’m Christopher Columbus discovering a new world.  It happened a while ago with green beans.

My first memory of green beans involved a tuna casserole.  I’m pretty sure those beans came out of a can.  They must have been overcooked because they were soft and squishy.  But at the time I didn’t know they could taste any different.  I just ate what was put in front of me.

Years later I picked some green beans growing in a friend’s garden and discovered:

Fava Beans: What Are They and How Do I Cook Them?

The reputation of fava beans got much darker after Anthony Hopkins’ Hannibal Lecter confided in The Silence of the Lambs, “I ate his liver with some fava beans and a nice chianti.”

That’s a rather grim image to bring up at the dinner table, but it did give fava beans their 15 minutes of fame.

Chickpeas: What Are They and How Do I Use Them?

Dried Chickpeas

I first heard the word “chickpeas” when I asked somebody what hummus was?  Growing up in a small town in Western Pennsylvania, I didn’t encounter a wide variety of Middle Eastern food until I moved to Manhattan and had dinner at Cedars of Lebanon.  That restaurant is now closed, but I’ve never forgotten the sampler plate I ordered.

What to Eat on a Dark and Stormy Night

Chicken and Fresh Vegetable Soup

Wanna-be world-famous-author Snoopy said it best in the first line of his never-finished novel: “On a dark and stormy night….”  If only Snoopy or his creator, Charles Schultz, could cook, we might have seen some memorable meals in that comic strip instead of an empty dog dish.

On one recent dark and stormy and cold night in usually sunny California I decided not to go out to the grocery store.

Mom Cooking Tip 70

Drain and rinse canned vegetables and beans to remove excess salt.

See all my Cooking Tips!

Mom Money-Saving Tip 53

If you eat a lot of beans, use dried beans instead of canned. Contrary to what you may have heard, dried beans do not have to be soaked overnight before cooking. However, they do need to be cooked for about 2 hours. How hard is that? It just takes some planning.

Consider this: 1 cup dried beans equals about 2 15-ounce cans of cooked beans. A 1-pound package of dried beans costs anywhere between $1.25-$1.99. I recently saw them for 77 cents a pound, sold loose in a bin. That is considerably cheaper than 4 15-ounce cans of cooked black beans, which range in price from about 79 cents (on sale) to $1.25 per 15-ounce can. Stored in the refrigerator, beans you have cooked yourself will last for about a week.  Freeze any excess beans.

                                                 See all my Money-Saving Tips!

When Is It Worth Spending a Lot of Time in the Kitchen?

Vegetarian Black Bean Soup

Some people would say “Never,” but I find cooking relaxing—unless it’s not going well. 

Recently I spent more hours than I care to admit making three large chocolate desserts for a bean-to-bar chocolate tasting (more on that in a future post).  It was worth it to me for many reasons, but mostly because I felt competent doing something most people I know would be afraid to try.  My circle of friends does not include professional chefs, although a close friend used to work in a test kitchen.

I make pizza just about every Saturday night because three teenagers are at the table and congenially demand it.  It’s worth the effort because they love pizza – and so do I.  There are no shortcuts when making real pizza dough, but hey…how often do teenagers willingly talk to you while waiting for the next pizza to come out of the oven?

Yesterday I was moved to make Black Bean Soup because

Mom Money-Saving Tip 19

Turn a simple soup into a main course by adding one or more of these ingredients and then, after bringing to a boil, cooking for 8-10 minutes: 1 can black beans, 2 raw eggs, 1/2 cup uncooked broken pieces of spaghetti or 3/4 cup cooked rice or other cooked grain.

See all my Money-Saving Tips!

Letting Kids Control Your Menu

Stuff Your Own Tortillas (photo by Andy Mills)

When I was growing up in Western Pennsylvania, I had almost no say in what the family ate for dinner.  My mother cooked it and served it, and my father, brother and I choked it down.  On Monday nights, if Dad was out at his Kiwanis dinner meeting, my brother Steve and I begged for Chef Boyardee Spaghetti.  It came in a can, and the noodles were as soft as pudding. 

I’m sure my mother obliged us because all she had to do was get out the can opener, dump the spaghetti into a pot and turn on the gas.  We lapped it up and begged for more.  It was the best-tasting dinner we were likely to have in any given week.

Flash forward to Sunday dinner...