Yum

We chose our next bean!

Rancho Gordo has this to say:

"Our harvest of Good Mother Stallard was again not great and we're already pulling it off the website for sale. It's such a shame as it's one of my favorites. It's big and meaty and has a bean broth that is as good as the bean. Hopefully we'll have production problems solved by next year and in the meantime enjoy what we like to call the 'you'll be back' bean."

Second Night

Last weekend, we received about 10 different kinds of greens from Everblossom Farm, so when I was looking for a way to reuse the Jacob's Cattle Beans, the obvious answer was to cook them with greens. I used two big bunches of kale and went in a Mediterranean direction - added some stock, smoke chili salt, and parmesan to flavor the bean liquor. I served it on rice with a squeeze of lemon, dash of parmesan, splash of olive oil, and grind of black pepper. 

We both agreed: delicious!

Jacob's Cattle Bean

Our CSA farmer has recently branched out into dried beans, and we've loved her black beans. Last week, she sent us a new treasure: local, organic Jacob's Cattle Beans.

Searching the internet brings up this information:

"Jacob's Cattle bean is also called a Trout bean or an Appaloosa bean, but Jacob's Cattle bean is the oldest name for the variety. It is a plump, white and red speckled, kidney-shaped bean with vivid maroon splashes. It is full-flavored, holds its shape under long cooking, and stands up well to plenty of seasoning. The bean has a rich aroma. It is a little tannic on the tongue and tastes almost like a green bean with a slightly fruity aftertaste. The aftertaste was also described as rich and nutty."

It looks like I should have used sage as the herb, based on the recipes online. I went with oregano, just from instinct.

Here are the beauties at the beginning of soaking.

Before the boil:

All ready to eat.

We found them to be a mild, pleasant bean - more suited to being sauteed with greens than tossed in tacos.

Stew

When we decided on white beans, I started looking around our kitchen for what we had that would pair with it:

- Canned heirloom tomatoes from the Everblossom Farm Winter CSA
- Dried rosemary from Everblossom
- Organic carrots from the supermarket
- Celery
- White onions
- Garlic

It made me think of a stew, thick and creamy, with a light tomato broth. I felt like going Mediterranean was more appropriate, even though the beans are grown in Mexico.

I searched the Googleverse for "white bean stew," occasionally with the qualifier "vegetarian," and I came up with a LOT of white bean and kale stews. All of which sounded great - I love the combination of beans and greens. I think I even have an entire cookbook dedicated to the combination.

The Kitchn's recipe for Tomato and White Bean Panade seemed to include all the ingredients I had on hand, looked easy enough, and sounded delicious. I knew I would leave out the bread, since we're not eating wheat these days, and I wanted a way to limit how much I consumed. We bought bread to serve on the side, since we decided to invite friends over for this bean tasting.

Here they are simmering away in the pot:

Do you see that one bean that is darker? There were a few of them in the mix. I thought of them as lucky to whoever ended up eating them.

When I was rooting around the refrigerator for veggies, I found a bag of beets with a fair amount of greens. Voila! I could use those for color contrast and nutrition-boosting.

Here's the final result:

It was pretty tasty, very beany. I thought the brown sugar made it too sweet, so I would omit that next time. But overall delicious!

Alubia Criollo

For our next bean, we decided to go the opposite direction, from brown to white. We chose Alubia Criollo. We actually have two varieties of these - the second we recieved as supporters for the Rancho Gordo - Xoxoc Project Fire Recovery Fund.

These that we received from the Bean Club came with this description:

"I was lucky enough to film a show called Emeril Green with the great Emeril LaGasse. He was a great guy and obviously tickled about all the beans we had. The bean that mae him flip, however, was the Alubia Criollo. He made me pronounce it on the air and if you've heard him say jalapeno, you'd be grateful. He was a very generous host and it was fun to be around such a legend and someone who really understood the beauty of beans. The Alubia Criollo are medium to large white beans with a super creamy texture and classic white bean flavor. Think about cooking them with a spring of rosemary (one is plenty. It's strong!) and your best, greenest olive oil as a dressing."

Fear Not

We haven't forgotten about beans. We just haven't given the latest updates. But here's a preview...