Beans, Beans

One of my early ambitions in the garden was to grow dried beans. The woman to whom I occasionally go for a massage has these gallon jars up in her kitchen filled with different colored beans. I assume she eats them and they’re not just for decoration. I am sort of in awe of people who regularly soak and simmer and make things with beans.

But when you’re looking at those seed catalogues, it’s just hard to pass up a packet of calypso or cranberry beans. And it is incredible when you open the pod and these hard, brightly colored, foreign objects spill out. Calypso are my favorite. The pods get circular bumps and dry out like paper. And the white is so white, the black so black. They are a yin yang bean.

Irish Creek Annie’s are the standby. They are boring green and tan, but they germinate well and produce a lot of beans.

This year I also grew Silver Cloud Cannelini, white as snow, but the gopher plowed through their row so I ate most of them as shell beans before they were dry.

Finally, cranberry beans. These are still in their shell phase, mostly, so I’ve left them on the vine to dry more completely. What gems.

I put all my beans in a jar– a quart full! When cooked they will double or triple in size, so it is more bounty than it seems. And one more way to keep the harvest, easier than canning and more fun (just shell them and save).

In the front garden I planted Scarlett Runner beans and that’s what you see next to the dry beans on the plate above. I was totally unprepared for the purple! I shelled them before they were dry and ate them all last night.

After simmering some garlic and onion, I threw in the beans and some water and cooked them for 20-25 minutes, until tender. Then I added a bunch of Brussel’s sprouts for 3-4 minutes. Because I needed something to do while the beans cooked and something to go with them, I made a tomato salad: Paul Robeson, which is flavorful enough but doesn’t hold its shape like beefsteaks, so I think I’ll skip them next year, with basil, oil/vinegar, feta and red pepper. At this point, I’m just throwing a mess of veggies on the plate each night however they go together.