I love beans but I can't eat frozen ones....though happy to eat the "shelled" bean without the pod. I am finding without the aga the dried beans take ages...so maybe I will cook or freeze the beans fresh this year.
Pressure cooker for dried beans or or slowcooker?
Pressure cooker ATM, that might change. Smelling the house out all day with slow cooking beans (not my favourite smell) might be a downside, but then I'm a dried bean novice, what do I know. PS, P seems to have repaired the pressure cooker if only temporarily. YAY!
I freeze beans. Definitely not as good as fresh but I wouldn’t call them overly offensive. I blanch , pat dry as best I can, bag or tub then freeze. Cook from frozen either in a curry, stir fry or steamer . In steamer only until defrosted & warmed through about 5 mins.
I’m also a bean drying novice but want to do a lot more of it. I just got myself a pressure cooker (mostly) just for bean rehydrating. All I got to do now is learn how to use it!
Beans are definitely a "staple" for me. The kids always ate a lot of chilli.
I often do beans and tomatoes for me for lunch ( if I'm out of sardines
)
But I've always had the aga - bung them in, smells go up the chimney and job done!
Oh, I really miss that cooker....
Though will still have tons of beans growing as it's a good food with little effort?
P is having beans at every meal and hasn't complained yet. We're having them instead of pots/rice/pasta and even without a sauce they're scrummy.
I don't know why I've never saved and dried beans in all the years I've been growing green beans. Many thanks to Scarlet and her little packet of mystery beans, it's opened a whole new world to me. I think Meuch is my favourite and have discovered different beans take different times to get soft.
I grow french beans and broad beans mainly for drying, A few for eating fresh/freezing. The frozen one are done like PyrennesPlot, no idea what the varieties are though.
Broad beans are probably the easiest as just plant and wait till pods are black. To use, I soak for a couple of days then remove the skins by cutting in half along their length. Not sure if there is an easier way but do when there is something good on radio. They only take about a 10 to 15 minutes simmering then to cook.