{"id":1520,"date":"2012-12-30T02:10:58","date_gmt":"2012-12-30T02:10:58","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/cookhappylivehealthy.org\/blog\/?p=1520"},"modified":"2012-12-30T02:10:58","modified_gmt":"2012-12-30T02:10:58","slug":"dried-beans-more-cooking-tips","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/cookhappylivehealthy.org\/blog\/dried-beans-more-cooking-tips\/","title":{"rendered":"Dried Beans–More Cooking Tips"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Shelled
Shelled beans at Abbondanza Farms<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

An earlier post<\/a> explained several ways to cook dried beans.\u00a0 While desk cleaning recently, I ran across an article with more bean-cooking tips.\u00a0 It’s by John Broening, the owner of several seasonal and local restaurants in Denver and long-time Denver Post<\/em> columnist.\u00a0 I love John’s informative and down-to-earth articles, like “Winter Beans,”* where he sings the praises of his favorite comfort food, dried beans.\u00a0 Along the way he shares two cooking nuggets:<\/p>\n

    \n
  1. First, it may seem that dried beans are indestructible, and indeed they do have the advantage of a long shelf life.\u00a0 But John notes that older beans have longer cooking times.\u00a0 I’ve also found their flavor begins to diminish over time.\u00a0 Of course it’s perfectly safe to eat beans that are a year or two old–no need to pitch them–but see if you can use them up in a year.\u00a0 Not only does that artificial deadline\u00a0 ensure better beans.\u00a0 It will also inspire you to get more healthful beans into your meals–starting now!<\/li>\n
  2. Secondly, John notes that our altitude makes stove top or oven cooking more difficult.\u00a0 “Beans at altitude take twice as long to soften as they do at sea level and tend to cook unevenly.”\u00a0 I’ve certainly found this to be true when cooking beans on the stove top.\u00a0 Maybe that’s why a lot of people resort to canned beans.\u00a0 Happily, I’ve not noticed this problem when cooking beans in the slow cooker, although I do have to use the “high” setting.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

    An electric pressure cooking is John’s solution for the altitude problem.\u00a0 I’ve never used one, so let us know if you have experience to share on this point.\u00a0 And in the meantime, give your slow cooker a try.\u00a0 Although canned beans are perfectly fine, you’ll be amazed to see how flavorful beans can be when home-cooked.\u00a0 No wonder John views them as the ultimate comfort food!<\/p>\n

    P.S. Why not make a bean dish tonight:\u00a0 a white bean soup with kale, a red bean enchilada casserole, black bean burgers, garbanzo bean hummus. . . . There are so many options!<\/p>\n

    *from Edible Front Range, Winter 2009, p. 43<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    Two helpful tips for cooking dried beans. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"generate_page_header":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[2,24,3],"tags":[131,171,185,529],"class_list":["post-1520","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-healthy-cooking-basics","category-basic-healthy-cooking-techniques","category-the-right-equipment-for-healthy-cooking","tag-cooking-beans","tag-dried-beans","tag-electric-pressure-cooker","tag-slow-cooker-recipes","masonry-post","generate-columns","tablet-grid-50","mobile-grid-100","grid-parent","grid-50"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/cookhappylivehealthy.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1520","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/cookhappylivehealthy.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/cookhappylivehealthy.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cookhappylivehealthy.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cookhappylivehealthy.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1520"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/cookhappylivehealthy.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1520\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/cookhappylivehealthy.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1520"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cookhappylivehealthy.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1520"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cookhappylivehealthy.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1520"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}