They Joy of Dried Beans

Dried Beans involve a little more planning than canned beans, but the savings and results are well with the extra planning time. Dried beans are cheaper, easier to store, and dont have any preservatives or scuzzy water to rinse off of them. Some of my favourite and newly discovered recipes using dried beans!

15 Bean Chili

1 Cup Bob's Red Mill 15 Bean (prepared – see Preparing Dried Beans)

1/2 can of hot enchillada sauce

3 chopped tomatoes (frozen from the end of the summer)

1 jar of salsa (2 cup jar - canned from summer)

1. Simmer all ingredients together until some of the liquid is evaporated and chili consistency.

2. Serve as is, over oven fries, mashed potatoes or rice!

Roasted Chickpeas
These chickpeas are the ultimate snack food. They can be flavoured any way you want and satisfy that crunchy craving like a chip. But with a TON of fibre, protein and iron.

Preheat oven to 450F
Place (prepared) chickpeas on a baking sheet and dry with a clean dish towel
Toss chickpeas in olive oil and spices of your choosing
Bake for 30-40 minutes, until brown and crispy. Stir the chickpeas around halfway through to ensure even cooking. Decrease cooking time if baking right after boiling. Keep a close eye on the chickpeas, especially in the last 5-10 minutes

Chana Masala (Curried Chickpeas)
One of my favourite kitchen tools is my slow cooker. It came in very handy for making these curried chickpeas. I used Shan's Chana Masala Mix to make these chickpeas and added some of my own madras curry and garam masala at the end of cooking.
I folllowed the directions on the package, however I used the starchy water from boiling the chickpeas to cover the prepared chickpeas in the slow cooker and let it simmer away fro 10 hours. I ended up with a warm spicy gravy and soft chickpeas. Which is delicious with warm naan or rice.

Refried Beans
Another great use for the slow cooker and dried beans is refried beans. This recipe is much healthier and free of preservatives than canned beans, or canned refried beans.

1 onion, peeled and halved

3 cups dry pinto beans, rinsed

1/2 fresh jalapeno pepper, seeded and chopped

2 tablespoons minced garlic

5 teaspoons salt

1 3/4 teaspoons fresh ground black pepper

1/8 teaspoon ground cumin, optional

9 cups water

Place the onion, rinsed beans, jalapeno, garlic, salt, pepper, and cumin into a slow cooker.
Pour in the water and stir to combine.
Cook on High for 8 hours, adding more water as needed. 
Once the beans have cooked, strain them, and reserve the liquid.
Mash the beans with a potato masher, adding the reserved water as needed to attain desired consistency.             

What a weekend!!

On Saturday, thanks to Kijiji and WagJag I scored enough frozen meats to fill my new mini chest freezer. This haul included: 24x6oz Hamburgers (for $22), 10lbs of 8oz AAA Top Sirloin Steaks (for $71), 3kg of All Beef Hot Dogs (for $16) and 4kg of free range chicken breast (for $47) all from JW Foods in Scarborough. Met one of the owners (Bill) and he was very excited about what is in store for the revamp of JW foods. He also was very generous and gave me free packages of chicken souvlaki and Greek sausages, both of which they make "the way their dad taught them". Check them out for all your meet needs - Brimley, just north of the 401.

Then, after leaving there I raced up to Michaels at Downsview to meet the one and only 'Ace of Cakes' Chef Duff Goldman! What a genuinely nice guy!!

After meeting Duff I came home with my autograph and new Charm City apron, and went down to my new pantry to see what the situation was. I noticed that 2 - what I thought were squashes - were looking like they needed to be eaten soon. So that was the next on the list of things to do. The first one - I though was spaghetti squash - oval, yellow....-but once I cut into it it smells, looks, tastes more like honey dew melon. Who knew honey dew melon had an oval shape and yellow rind!

The second one was one of my weird and wonderful purchases from the market last week. The farmer called it a sweet potato squash. Whatever it was it was DELISH! I roasted it flesh up with butter and maple syrup - like an acorn squash, as the farmer suggested!

After that I made 60 meatballs - some for dinner and some for the freezer. The dinner meatballs became Sweet and Sour Meatballs (with pineapple and peppers).

With such and eventful Saturday I was ready for a relaxed Sunday, I started at Highland Farms to pick up a few staples - dried beans, ice cream and milk - they also had Ontario Field Tomatoes on for 99c/kg. So of course, with the popularity of my last batch of salsa I had to capitalize on the last of the tomato crops - I bought 6kg (13lbs = about 7qts). My lazy Sunday resulted in tomato salsa canning of 7 pint jars, and once again salsa juice that is currently flavouring the pot roast in the slow cooker.

For dinner was steak fajitas with sizzling peppers and onions, of course with home made taco sauce!

I'm starting to learn more and more about this Once A Month Cooking - I may try once a week instead!