Spoiler alert!

K will tell you all about this wonderful soup that she cooked the other night -- and the leftovers of which I am currently craving -- soon. But in the meantime I have to post a photo...

Hummus is For Everyone

A few weeks ago, someone in my department had some kind of event that had leftover food.  And, as people do when this happens, they put the food in the departmental refrigerator with a note saying whether it was fair game for everyone to eat it or not.  Only the way they informed us was with a note on the refrigerator that said simply “Hummus is for Everyone.”  My immediate reaction was that truer words have never been spoken.  In fact, I think that is going to be my motto on this year’s Christmas letter.

You see, I like hummus.  A lot.  I mean, what is there not to like, especially if the hummus has lots of garlic in it  But I even am a sucker for the various flavored hummuses (hummi?) that are served at the dining hall on campus, like ‘carmalized onion’ and ‘jalapeno’.  For some reason, I have never made much of my own hummus, but our recent adventures with beans has inspired Kay to start make it pretty regularly, and when she was out of town last weekend I took it upon myself to take some of the chickpeas she had soaked and cooked and turn them into hummus.  

At my wife's suggestion, I used this recipe from Inspired Taste, and it worked well.  They seem to think that the secret to good hummus has to do with the order in which you combine and blend the ingredients.  I have no idea whether they are right and, despite my scientist instincts, I don't plan to do a long series of experiments to find out.  But I will say that the recipe turned out well, and I have been happily eating hummus all week.  Because it is for everyone, except that I don't want to share.

(Note that this is normally the part of the post where I would include a photo of the finished product.  But let's face it -- as yummy as hummus is, it isn't particularly photogenic as it is basically just a beige blob.  So instead I will just post a photo of this really cute kinkajou that our son came home from school talking about yesterday)

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."

Good Enough

Kay posted yesterday about a delicious meal she made by sauteeing the leftover beans with fresh local kale and other fancy-shmancy ingredients. I did my simpler (read: lazier) version of te dish on a different night, where I sauteed the beans with just a little bit of frozen spinach, some onions and garlic, and some ghee. It wasn't as good as Kay's version (obviously), but for less than ten minutes of work it was a very satisfying meal, thanks to the delicious beans.

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.

Some of My Secrets to Good Beans

I have a few tricks up my sleeve.

First, I almost always use "Mixtec salt" - sometimes called "Mexican salt" - in my beans. There's apparently a lot of controversy on the subject of using salt during the cooking process. "Mixtec salt" is apparently a staple in Mexican kitchens, and it's rumored to soften beans. I trust Mexican madres, so I use it. I wait until I've boiled the beans for five minutes, then I sprinkle in a pinch. I think it gives an interesting flavor.

In black beans, I use epazote. It's a Mexican herb that grows as a weed, and it has a unique faintly camphorescent aroma. It flavors beans in a subtle but distinctly Mexican way. I add the leaves and stems after the garlic and onions are sauteed, then warm them a bit. Then I add the beans and water, and cook as usual.

For pinto beans, I do the same treatment with Mexican oregano, and it adds an herbaceous richness to the beans.

Try it and let me know your results!