Wednesday, February 13, 2013

Cooking More For Less: 1lb. Kidney Beans

Hi All! In the spirit of cooking more for less, I'm tackling one pound of kidney beans this week.  I'll add on more recipes as I use up the beans.

Last week I did one pound of lentils and I've cooked it all and have blogged nothing since I waited till I finished up the last cup of beans to even begin blogging it all. It took 6 days to use all of the lentils. Six days! Now those six recipes that I want to type up in one sitting seem to be this colossus of a task to take it from my journal and type it to this screen. But, I promise, I will work on it as soon as I type up my new favorite thing. Boston Bean Dip.  Makes me want to go to Boston.

Just Wikipedia'd Boston.  Feels like I just went there and back.  Harvard is located outside of Boston across the Charles River in Cambridge (did not know that) and that's about all I gleaned from the wiki, or actually, that's all I was looking for.

I cooked the beans according to the crockpot method I had blogged about before.  One pound of beans in the ceramic crockpot filled to the top with water.  Let it sit overnight.  In the morning, drain the beans and rinse them with fresh water in a colandar.  Place the beans back in the ceramic crockpot.  Fill with water to about 2 inches from the top.  Lid.  Place in the electric part of the crockpot.  Plug in.  Set it to low until you get home for work or around 5 pm ish.  I left the house at 7 am and did not return until 5 pm that evening and they were perfectly done.  Drain in a colander, rinse with fresh water. Cool and toss the beans into a big tupperware container or divide and funnel into quart sized Mason Jars, lid and refrigerate.

The first thing I did with my kidney beans is to make my new favorite dip.

Boston Bean Dip
Ingredients
2 cups prepared kidney beans
1 small onion, diced small or minced
1/2 c. vegenaise
1/2 c. sweet pickle relish, I used sweet pickles that I canned this summer and diced them up
1 tsp. prepared horseradish
1 dash soy sauce
1 tsp. prepared mustard
1/2 tsp. Bangarang where to buy Bangarang? Right here.

Directions
Mix up all of the ingredients in a bowl.  Serve with crackers or stuffed in pita pockets for lunch.  So delicious.  I actually just ate a serving, or two, with a fork.  So delicious. Leftovers? Tuck the dip into a Mason Jar, lid and refrigerate.

Red Bean Habadilla
I just have to laugh because you can't make a vegan quesadilla because queso is cheese. . . so I will name it "haba"dilla because haba means bean in Spanish.  "I'm clever. Oh, the cleverness of me." I thank you, J.M. Barrie, Peter Pan.  

I have been out of all sorts of ingredients lately, including salsa, but I managed to wing it and here's what I did.

Red Bean Habadilla
Ingredients
1/2 c. Vegenaise
1/2 c. ketchup
1/2 c. yellow onions, diced
1/2 c. green bell peppers, diced
1/2 c. tomatoes, chopped
1/2 c. pickled jalapeno slices, mince those up
1/2 c. fresh cilantro
1 1/2 tsp. cumin
1 1/2 tsp. Bangarang!
2 cups of prepared small red kidney beans
2 cups of prepared white rice
1 Tbsp. coconut oil, earth balance butter or veggie oil
4-6 large burritos

Directions
In a big bowl combine all of the ingredients all the way down to the white rice.  Taste and season with more Bang! if you like.  Toss it all together.

In a big skillet, heat a tsp. of the oil on medium low heat.  Place a tortilla on top.  Spread a cup of more of the beans and rice mix on one half of the tortilla. Place a lid over it to heat the bean mix.  In about five minutes or less, remove the tortilla from heat and plate.  Fold the bean free side over the filling and cut into 4 pie shaped slices.  Top with chopped avocado with a sprinkle of Bangarang.

Red Bean Burgers
Ingredients
2 tsp. coconut oil, or other oil
1 cup yellow onion, chopped
1 c. carrots, peeled and chopped
1 c. mushrooms, chopped
6 cloves garlic, minced

4 Tbsp. ketchup
2 Tbsp. mustard
6 tsp. cumin
3 tsp. Bangarang!

3 cups prepared small red kidney beans
1-1 1/2 cup panko bread crumbs or just regular bread crumbs

Directions
In a big skillet, saute all of the veggies in the oil over medium heat until onion is translucent.  Add the ketch, must, cumin, and Bang.  Heat a couple minutes so it cooks thoroughly and kinda reduces a little bit in liquid and heats the spices up a bit.

Haul out your food processor.  Process the veggies until chunky-ish.  Add the beans and 1 cup Panko.  Pulse until combined.  Toss the mix back into that big bowl.  Get your hands in it.  See if it will take a nice firm shape to make a burger.  If it does great.  Make 6 to 8 burgers.  If not, add some more Panko until it stiffs up a bit.  Stir again.  Shape into snowballs. Flatten into burgers and round.  I placed them on waxed paper and put them in the freezer so when it was time I could pull a couple out and bake and package the rest for another time.

Bake the burgers in a 450 degree oven, line a baking sheet with foil and oil it, place burger on the oiled pan and bake for 15 minutes if fresh, for 30 minutes or so if they are frozen.

And that, my dears, is what I did with one pound of small red kidney beans.
~ Jen





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