Little Girl helping me roll out Bean?! Biscuits
Most of this week’s recipes don’t look like bean food, and they sure don’t taste like it! You’ll be shocked and amazed at what you can do with dry beans, but I wouldn’t recommend putting them in chocolate frosting…
In order for you to fully appreciate my bean mania, I have to explain a few things about my food storage philosophy…
1. I want a pantry stocked with foods I use in a lot of different main dishes, desserts, breakfasts and snacks my family likes to eat – not just in the 19 meals I store.
2. I want food storage basics I don’t have to rotate because I don’t want to eat food storage all the time (gasp!). Vegetable shortening is shelf stable and you can use it in a lot of different ways…but I don’t want to have to eat it to rotate it.
3. I’m cheap. I know freeze-dried is an option and it will last a long time (therefore meeting requirement #2). However, I’m extremely selective about what I buy freeze-dried. I just can’t bring myself to spend $40 for 10 cups of freeze-dried cheese – even if it will last 900 years (well, maybe if it lasted that long I could do it! Heirloom cheese?) But you see my point…
So…enter the star of this week’s show – the mighty BEAN! Beans are truly amazing! (Yes, I know, they take the ol’ digestive system some getting used to, which is another reason to introduce them slowly into your diet NOW, rather than in one fell swoop later.) I like beans so much, I’ve written an ode. If you’d like all the facts, follow the blue links!
An Ode to Beans
I love beans, yes, I do!
I love beans and so should you!
Now to the point! For a couple of years I’ve been replacing eggs with blended navy beans (Thanks, Cindy!) to add fiber and pump up the nutrition. First it was in cookies, then in Donkey’s Waffles and the Honey Nut ‘n Pumpkin Pancakes I posted a couple weeks ago. The husband and kids had no idea! (For those of you who are interested, I’ve added the bean substitution back in on those recipes.)
Then I heard about a woman substituting some of the oil in her recipes for beans and the wheels started turning…The last time we moved, I had 30 cans of expired cream of chicken soup – I just don’t use it very often when we’re eating fresh. Using beans, instead of butter, as a base, I concocted a cream soup substitute. No more expired cream soup in my pantry and better nutrition! And that was just the beginning…
But I still had a couple of problems. First, convenience –dry beans take some planning ahead. Even 20 minutes in the pressure cooker isn’t convenient when you’re trying to whip up pancakes for supper. Second, moldy beans in Tupperware containers. No matter how hard I tried, I always had a little (or a lot!) extra. Ugh! I tried freezing extras, but with my usual finesse would fry them in the microwave trying to thaw them out or lose them in the freezer…Cooking at my house really is kind of humorous!
Then it hit me! Bean flour. People have been doing that for years. What they haven’t been doing is “cooking” the flour before using it. Dry beans take a long time to cook. Powdered beans do not! In about 2 ½ minutes I can create the equivalent of a can of beans that have been run through the blender – minus the additives and in the exact quantity I need! Now we’re talkin’!
Click on the links below to visit our bean recipes that use this technique!
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Maybe you have answered this somewhere and I have missed since I am new here, but what kind of mill or grinder do you use. How much do they cost and where do you get one? Do you need one for bean and one for wheat? Or can one of these guys handle both?
I use a Nutrimill, and I bought mine at pleasanthillgrain.com. Today they cost $229.99 and have free shipping. (I’m pretty sure I paid $260 for mine…so this is a great deal!) I grind everything in it — popcorn, beans, wheat. It doesn’t do grains with a lot of moisture like flax or sprouted grains, and it won’t grind coursely enough to make cracked wheat cereal, but it makes the smoothest, softest flour you’ve ever seen. My soft white wheat feels almost like white flour after grinding! I consider it one of 3 essential kitchen devices.
@Miriam – I have a VERY old grinder that I got from my mom when she bought a new one. I was worried it wouldn’t grind beans, but they go through just fine. It’s a Romper electric flour and cereal mill (or something very close to that that my brain scrambled it from). Hope that helps!
Anne
Okay….I need info on the Cream of soup substitute. I go thru a lot of that stuff and while it’s not healthy, it sure does taste good.
) Would love a way to make it cheaper/healthier! Thanks! You gals are awesome!
Give me a day or 2! I was going to post it here, but then it’ll be hard to find…if I post it as a real post then it’ll show up in all of our categories on the side so it’ll be easier to find! I’ll try to have it up before Monday!
Mellyn
Okay…it’ll post tomorrow (Saturday) morning! Let me know what you think!