how to make beans in the slow cooker

The New York Times recently had an article One Pot of Beans, Four Dinners. And I was just thinking about writing a post about making beans in the slow cooker anyways. It's more economical and tastes better (and is healthier) than canned beans. Make one bag of dried beans, and then freeze what you're not using in 1-2 cup batches. I've done this with garbanzo beans and black beans so far and both turned out really well. Here are some recipe ideas, and tips for making beans in the slow cooker.

Slow cooker beans
This technique works with any beans except lentils. 

1. (optional): Soak beans overnight. Some people say this makes the beans easier to digest. So if you think of it the day before, soak the beans first by rinsing them and then covering with a few inches of water in a big bowl in the fridge.

2. (If soaked: rinse and drain.) Add beans to slow cooker, covered by about 2 inches of water, plus 1 teaspoon of salt. (optional: add aromatics such as a bay leaf, onion, garlic, or herbs)

3. Cook on low about 6 hours. If you soaked them, they might be done a bit earlier, so check around hour five.

4. Cool and then store.

Meal Ideas with Garbanzo Beans (Chickpeas)
Make this bright orange winter couscous from Ottolenghi
A garlicky pasta dish with sage and chickpeas
A raw carrot and chickpea salad with moroccan spices

  

Meal Ideas with Black Beans
This black bean quinoa salad with mango and lime tastes super fresh
Make a nice beef stew with black beans 
Try vegetarian tacos: black bean and sweet potato filling

  

spring green minestrone

This is another recipe inspired by Anna Thomas's Love Soup and Nigel Slater's post for a green minestrone. I got all kinds of green things at the farmer's market and wanted to try a green spring soup. Anna Thomas purees her green soup, but I liked the idea of keeping things small and whole so you can see all the good veggies swimming around. :) It was veggie-packed and tasty, but rather subtle and needed some red pepper flakes and/or ground pepper at the end for a little kick.

2 leeks, white and light green parts
2 T olive oil
garlic
sea salt

2 small green zucchini, halved and cut in thin slices
half bunch asparagus, cut in small slices
1 can cannelini beans (or potatoes)
about 3 c basic light vegetable broth
fresh lemon juice (2-3 T)

sorrel and chives
red pepper flakes
fresh ground pepper
garnish: spring onions, parmesan or pecorino romano shavings

Wash and drain leeks, slice. In a soup pot, saute leeks with butter or oil and a little salt. Try not to get brown, just soft. Add garlic and zucchini and asparagus, cook a few minutes then add liquids (stock and/or a little water). Add beans or potatoes, let simmer a few minutes until everything is hot. Top with fresh chives, sorrel, a squeeze of lemon juice and garnish with spring onions and cheese. 

Serve with good bread and cheese.

quinoa kale salad with apricots and blood orange

This is based on a recipe from Pam Anderson for Runner's World magazine, advertising it as a high-protein recovery salad. It's a variation of another good kale-quinoa salad Jessica made last week that I had to remake soon after. Remembering the great citrus flavor, I added one blood orange to this salad as well. I thought it was maybe missing the crunch of some toasted nuts, but it was tasty and I felt like I got some much-needed vitamins.

kale + quinoa + fruit + bean + dressing

Variation #1: apricots, kidney beans, yogurt-Dijon dressing

Variation #2: blood orange, chickpeas, citrus dressing

Recipe here from edible perspectives

Ingredients:

1 cup quinoa (red or white)

1 bunch kale

1 can kidney beans

shallot or 1/4 red onion

4 apricots, pitted and diced (could use dried)

cilantro, garnish

optional: slices of 1-2 blood oranges

dressing:

Olive oil (3T), Dijon mustard (1tsp), Honey (1tsp), Cumin (1tsp), Yogurt or kefir (1/3 c), salt and pepper

1. Quinoa: rinse and add to pot with 1:2 ratio quinoa to water. Bring to boil then simmer 20 mins. Transfer to a bowl, let come to room temp. (Tip: make extra to have on hand for other recipes, or just for morning breakfast.)

2. Prep other ingredients. Wash and cut kale in ribbons. Rinse and drain beans. Thinly slice onion or shallot. Dice apricot and cut blood orange. Mix dressing. 

3. Combine everything. Enjoy!

quinoa salad with black beans, mango, and more

This is a veggie-packed quinoa salad with lots of flavors. The mango and lime juice really make it fresh and add a nice sweet-sourness.

ingredients: 
2 cups cooked quinoa (1 cup uncooked - mix of red and white)
1 mango, cut into small dice (see how to cut a mango)
1/2 can black beans (rinsed, drained) or a full can if you want more black beans
1/2 bell pepper (red or yellow), small dice
3 chopped scallions
1/2 cup chopped fresh cilantro
diced jicima
5 radishes, thinly sliced

dressing: oil / vinegar (red wine, cider, or rice) / lime juice / bit of sugar / lime zest

Cook the quinoa, 1 cup quinoa to 2 cups water (simmer 15 minutes covered).
Chop all your veggies: bell pepper, scallions, jicima, radish, and mango (see instructions). Rinse beans, zest lime, add everything together in a big bowl. Let the quinoa cool slightly before mixing it with the veggies.

black-bean and chard quesadillas with fresh guacamole

These quesadillas are heavy on the beans and veggies, and just need a little cheese to hold it all together. They're great with some fresh, garlicky guacamole on top. In a saute pan, saute onion and garlic, add jalapeno, and swiss chard stems. Cook until soft, then add swiss chard leaves until wilted, then black beans. Heat through. In a separate pan, heat a tortilla, then flip, squeeze with lime, and put filling on one side. Sprinkle some cheese on top, then fold over. Turn once more so it gets a bit crispy on the outside. Serve with guacamole and/or fresh salsa.

ingredients:
whole wheat tortillas
1/2 red onion (or 1 small), diced
1 clove garlic
1 jalapeno
swiss chard leaves, and stems chopped
can black beans, rinsed
shredded cheese (cheddar or bag Mexican cheese)
optional: add bacon

guacamole for topping:
1-2 avocados
1-2 cloves garlic, pressed
lime juice
salt
diced tomatoes
taste to get the mix of lime and salt just right. 

Wild Rice Salad with Butter Beans, Garlic-Roasted Carrots and Fennel

This is a good one... I saw the salad on My New Roots and loved the combination of wild rice and carrots. It smelled soo good as the fennel, carrots and garlic were roasting. It packs well as a lunch, too.

Ingredients:
1/2 cup wild rice (uncooked)
1 can butter beans (or navy, cannellini), or from dried (+ 8 hours)
4-5 medium carrots, cut into diagonal discs
1/2 fennel bulb, trimmed and cut into 1-inch pieces
1 small red onion, sliced thin (or about 1/4 of a larger red onion)
4 cloves garlic, minced
2 Tbsp. extra virgin olive oil
1 bunch fresh dill
fennel fronds
salt, black pepper

Dressing:
olive oil / cider vinegar / dijon mustard / maple syrup / salt

Beans: If making beans from dried, soak overnight, or 8 hours. Drain, rinse, and cook about 45 mins.

Make wild rice: rinse wild rice, drain, and put in a pot, cover with cold water. Add salt, bring to a boil, reduce to simmer, and cook until tender (about 45 minutes). Drain the excess water.

Roast carrots and fennel: Preheat oven to 400.  Wash carrots and slice on diagonal. Cut fennel into pieces roughly the same size, and mince the garlic. Add with oil salt and pepper to a baking sheet. Bake 15-20 minutes, stirring occasionally. Don't let the vegetables get too soft.

Combine ingredients: Mix dressing and add to warm beans, rice, carrots. Add paper-thin onions, and dill and fennel fronds. Tip: add the red onions to the vinegar to soak while you cook so they lose a bit of their raw bite. You can also salt them, let them sit, and run them under cold water to rinse. This also makes them a bit more neutralized.

Recipe inspired by My New Roots: Warm Salad Month: Wild Rice Butter Bean and Garlic Roasted Carrot Salad

winter comfort: pancetta, white bean, swiss chard pot pies

Monday night Katie and I cooked pot pies from the Smitten Kitchen Cookbook. It was a little bit of work, making the pastry dough from scratch as well, but if you have two cooks in the kitchen it all gets done pretty efficiently. :) Deb Perelman suggests making these for company, because you can also do the components in advance and bake them later. To make: first make the pastry dough, make the pot pie filling (swiss chard, pancetta) and a gravy-like sauce (white beans), fill oven-save bowls, top with the pastry, and bake. The pastry is really flaky, buttery and delicious. If you left out the pancetta and used vegetable stock it would be great as a vegetarian recipe as well.

hearty soups IV: porotos granados, Chilean bean and corn stew

 This soup is adapted from Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall's cookbook Veg: River Cottage Everyday. Again, another great British chef I had not heard of...I saw this book at Synne's and fell in love with the images and simple recipe ideas. I just had to have it, although it doesn't come out in the US edition until May 2013. So we're using grams and liters, and "tinned" beans instead of canned. :) If you have a kitchen scale, metric is easier anyways than measuring cups, and for things like soups the measurements don't need to be exact anyways.

This is a take on the traditional Chilean stew porotos granados, a combination of old-world ingredients that (according to the internet) pre-dates the Spanish, from the Mapuche Indians. I guess it is traditionally made with cranberry beans. See here for how beautiful they are, by "Hungry Sofia." I am dealing with winter and the lack of fresh most things, so I used canned cannellini beans.  Other recipes call for the addition of bell pepper and basil instead of cilantro. But the common ingredients are sqaush/pumpkin, beans, sweet paprika, corn. I followed the lead of a recommendation on Saveur to add a swirl of a garlicy-herb paste into the soup. I found it a bit bland without the addition of lots of salt, pepper and herbs at the end. Then it was nice and fresh tasting - so season well.

hearty soups III: jamaican jerk chicken chili

 This soup relates to one of my favorite cooking memories with Michael. We were making this chili in Berlin , and in German grocery stores you of course can't buy Jamaican Jerk seasoning. So Michael made the seasoning from scratch, combining various spices and herbs with the mortar and pestle. Very impressive. But then he forgot to check how much of the spice blend the recipe called for - just adding all of it to the soup. It was so spicy we were both crying, trying to eat the (really good!) soup with yogurt on it. haha!  Here is the recipe, with the addition of chicken.  It's a good one...Michael said it's his favorite so far in the hearty soups series. Just watch the spice level. :)

By the way, I could have called this post: no horse meat in this chili. Have you heard about the latest Horse Meat Scandal, aka "Burgergate," in Europe? Horse meat has been "masquerading" as beef across Europe, mislabeled in all kinds of prepared dinners, and now in Nestle products. A poll in Britain found that 1 in 4 people is now eating less meat, and 65% mistrust food labels. See also NPR, Why is some food taboo? and Salon's 5 Lessons from the Horse Meat Scandal. It's strange: in the US I very rarely eat meat that has been processed in any way. In Germany, however, where you can get so much good sausage, I do occasionally do so, in Salami form. Stories like this do make me cringe a bit though. What do you think?

just a friendly little winter soup swap: black bean and carrot-ginger

This weekend I participated in a little soup-swapping with some friends (thanks so much to Rachel for organizing!). We each made 8 servings of a soup, and then gave 2 servings to each of three friends. So we ended up with 4 different soups - lots of meals! Mine is the ugly one on the top left... a "green soup" gone slightly purple with the addition of purple kale. Going clockwise: Sara did a spicy Carrot-Ginger with coconut, Rachel made a black bean soup, and Jessica a cabbage-borscht.

Keep reading for the recipes for Carrot-Ginger and Black-Bean: