Pressured Beans

I am not a professional photographer. Obviously. Some days I am only lucky enough to get the lighting correct to properly portray the food. Take it as my guarantee that this is real; made and eaten in my own kitchen.

If there is anything that could be able to convince someone to invest in a digital pressure cooker, this is IT! Even after owning mine for almost two years, I still get amazed at the abilities of this little guy. Sure it can create meals, such as soup and meat, in minutes as opposed to hours, but when it can cut out overnight prep work plus hours of cooking - that is something!

During this summer, my interest in using dried beans soared. For about two weeks. I found bags of dried beans on a clearance rack, so I scooped them up. Those bright red price tags sure do catch my eye and get my mind reeling with ideas. At such a low cost, I was sure to find uses for the pinto, black, and white beans I impulse bought. Shortly after, I found a recipe to cook and can pinto beans so they are ready to be mashed and (re)fried Mexican style. Unfortunately, this was a total fail! I wasted 9 pints of beans because most of the liquid escaped from the jars while processing. Being such a dried bean novice, I had no idea how to save my poor little pintos. Not too long after that, there was another horrible bean episode. After hours of soaking and cooking, a whole pot of escarole soup went down the drain. Wasted, because the beans had refused to transform from hard little pebbles to soft buttery beans. Needless to say, I was a bit discouraged from the whole bean adventure. My remaining dried clearance beans spent the rest of the summer hanging out in the cabinet, untouched. Good thing they have a super long shelf life!

This week, I began a new kitchen journey. As I explained in my last post, my life has become so busy, that planning seems to be the only way for my frugal and (somewhat) healthy lifestyle to survive. Sunday, I took inventory of everything that was in my kitchen. The objective is to use up what you have on hand instead of purchasing items you don't really need. With this inventory, you can make up meals using mainly what you already have. A shopping list can be made according to the few ingredients you may need to tie together your upcoming recipes. I managed to only spend $27 at the grocery store this week!

One of the items I needed was black beans. Monday's meal was stuffed sweet potatoes, which calls for a can of beans. I had the choice to go out and buy a can of beans or finally get the courage to make another attempt at the dried beans in the cabinet. Since the main point of this meal planning exercise is to: use up what I already have and to avoid spending extra money; I really could not justify buying some canned black beans.

A bonus of this meal planning is knowing what needs to be prepped ahead of time. By planning Monday's meal on Sunday, I had time to soak the beans and then cook them. The main reason most people use sodium packed canned beans is because it takes too damned long to prep the dried beans. Like most of today's unhealthy lifestyle habits, it boils down to convenience. Enter the Pressure Cooker - Convenience Maker! Once I decided to use the dried beans, I had to google how to properly prep and cook them. Within five minutes, I found a website with instructions for pressure cooking beans. Since one the things hindering me from using dried beans was the amount of time to prepare them, you can imagine how excited I was! I popped right up and grabbed my pressure cooker cookbook, Slow Food Fast. True to its name, this cookbook contained a chart for cooking unsoaked beans within mere minutes! All you have to do is cover the beans with water, add 2 Tbsp oil to prevent foaming, then cook on high for the recommended amount of time according to the specific bean.

Bean cooking time in minutes:

• Black beans - 20
• Black-eyed peas - 8
• Cannellini - 35
• Garbanzo/chickpeas - 35
• Great Northern - 25
• Kidney - 22
• Lentils, green - 8
• Lentils, red or yellow - 4
• Lima - 12
• Navy - 20
• Peanuts, raw - 60
• Pinto - 22
• Scarlet Runner - 16
• Soy - 28
• Split Peas - 6

Just be sure not to fill the pressure cooker more than half full.
One cup of dried beans should make approximately 3 cups of cooked beans.

Twenty minutes as opposed to hours upon hours of cooking is much more do-able. It may take longer than simply opening a can, but it totally makes up for it when you consider the health benefits of lower sodium intake, the significant lower cost, and the reduction in consumer waste - especially if you buy from bulk bins. This is definitely the way to go!

Kraut

One of these days, I will be able to begin a blog post without feeling guilty and obligated to explain why it has been so long since I last posted. It definitely is not for a lack of cooking. I cook my ass off! It gets to the point that I cannot physically keep up with the amount of dishes that come hand in hand with my delicious hobby, even with a dishwasher! I've been trying to pin down one specific reason for my lack of posts. Truthfully there are a handful of reasons, but if I had to sum it all up: I am TIRED!

I began a new job a few weeks ago. It pays better than my last job, but has me feeling drained. My alarm is set for an hour earlier in the mornings than I am used to, which means I need to get to bed an hour earlier each evening as well. Since I am not a morning person at all and totally a night owl, this basically means I lose an hour in my day. As if I had an hour I could spare! This blog is not the only thing that has suffered due to this job, so don't feel too abandoned. I have not been working out at all! Luckily, by eating fairly healthy, I have managed to stay around the same weight that I reached when I was working out regularly. Unfortunately, it has settled and looks much different. Muscle definitely weighs more than fat!

Sophia started kindergarten this year! Plus, dance classes started the very same week as school. She will be doing two nights of dance this year, which means two nights of being out of the house around dinner time. I really want to avoid the drive thru on those nights as much as possible, which means I need to get into the habit of planning. Now I need to think ahead and make large dinners that will provide leftovers or cook two meals on Mondays and Wednesdays to have a quick heat up meal on dance days. My life looks so different than it did this time last year, when I started this blog. Well, except for the fact that I am completely single. That hasn't changed and doesn't look like it will be anytime soon.

So now that I have caught you up with whats been going on with me (and vented a smidge), it is time for the kraut. With this CSA, I have had more cabbage than I knew what to do with. Not that the farm had an over abundance of a cabbage crop, but I never really cooked with cabbage before so I had some recipe searching to do. Luckily cabbage heads keep well in the refrigerator.

I was interested in making my own sauerkraut, but every recipe I found involved a 5 gallon bucket, a large plate, and months worth of fermentation. It is not unusual to find my house smelling like whatever I've been cooking, but the smell of fermenting kraut sticking around for months could really get old. A new friend of mine shared her recipe for small batches of kraut. Thank goodness! Even if I could handle months of fermentation smells, what would Sophia and I ever do with gallons of kraut?

- 3 to 4 small heads of cabbage or 1 to 2 large heads
-salt

Shred your cabbage. If you are like me, working without one of those fancy Kitchen-Aid do-hickeys, this is a rough process. Watch your knuckles! Once all the cabbage is shredded, begin layering it with the salt in a large bowl. One layer of cabbage, one generous layer of salt. Continue to layer until all cabbage is in the bowl. Let sit for 30 minutes to an hour. The salt will pull moisture out of the cabbage. Once there is a puddle of water collecting at the bottom of your bowl, it is time to transfer to jars. I managed to put all my kraut into one wide mouth mason jar. I recommend a jar with a wide enough opening to fit your hand inside.

Transfer your cabbage and its liquid into your jar, pressing down firmly after every couple scoops. There should be enough liquid to cover the cabbage once the jar is filled. If not, add some water. Shut the jar and place in a dark cabinet for a week to 10 days. Check your jar every few days and rinse any scum that collects on the lid. Be prepared for some fun odors to come rushing out of your jar the first time you open it. Don't say I didn't warn you! The smell was so strong, it chased my sister out of my apartment. Start taste testing your kraut at about 7 days. Once it is to your liking, transfer the jar to the fridge.

Now instead of buying those bags or cans of slop, you have your own kraut to add to pork chops, hot dogs, sausage, or any other dish you see fit. This past week, I baked some with turkey sausage and apple slices. Very delicious!