Looking at Dried Beans with new respect

Dried beans have always been one of our pantry staples. Cheap, nutritous and delicious. We use them in lots of ways. I have never thought or drying them until this year. I haven't had a decent crop of beans here until this year either. I have planted quite a lot of beans this summer, both climbing and bush and we have been enjoying them for about six weeks in various ways. A couple of weeks ago they seemed to get away from me and I noticed lots of extra large ones that would be too tough to eat in the usual way so I decided to dry them. After picking I put them on racks in the cold frame to dry out. Today I decided to shell them.



All those beans, came to just 270grams of dried beans. enough for one delicious meal no doubt. It got me thinking about how cheap they are to buy, although they can be hard to get up here, but usually about $4-5 for a kilo. I will dry more beans as I wonder about the growing and drying methods of anything that cheap and I am looking forward to making a lovely bean stew with these in the not too distant future.  We can eat them safe in the knowledge they are organic and processed by hand.

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March 3, 2011 at 4:35 AM
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