Here's how my friend Julie guides her weekly menu around a cooked legume and cereal:
Sunday evening – 5 minutes:
A legume to soak directly in the presto (one less pot to wash). For a family of four, you can cook a 1 kilo bag. At worst, you can freeze some cooked beans, a good deal for a soup or salad.
Monday morning – 5 minutes of work:
Discard the soaking water, or better still, put it in your watering can to feed your plants and vegetable garden.
Cooking – 1 hour or more : this will be done on Sunday evening rather than Monday morning, as the beans take longer to cook (you can also soak the beans for even longer than overnight, 18 hours, changing the water once or twice; cooking will be less energy-intensive). On the other hand, you will have the advantage of being able to taste them while they are cooking so as not to mess them up.
Here's a tip : the longer legumes have been dried, the longer they'll take to cook. That's why cooking times are never an exact science. Try to buy them from a store that regularly sells them (health food or ethnic grocery stores); they're more likely to be "fresh."
And while the pintos are cooking… I prepare the cereal (rice, millet, quinoa…).
Dried legumes have several advantages:
- Super economical, you can always buy them organic for less than the price of regular canned legumes;
- They are more digestible, since you change the water between soaking and cooking (which companies that sell them in cans may not do);
- You can use your cooking water, which will save you from having to prepare broth in many cases, while adding nutritional value to the recipes you add them to. I generally use them for soups, risottos, vegetable stews, hummus, etc.
Refried Beans Recipe
Ingredients :
- 15 ml (1 tbsp) olive oil
- 1 yellow onion (medium), finely chopped
- 3 cloves garlic, finely chopped
- 750 ml (3 cups) cooked beans
- 2 to 5 ml (1/2 to 1 tsp) ground cumin
- Cooking liquid to thin, if necessary
- Salt
Preparation :
- Heat the oil (a cast iron skillet is ideal).
- Sauté the onion until translucent, but do not brown, two or three minutes.
- Add the garlic and cook for one minute.
- When it smells good, add the beans and cumin, mix well, and cook, letting the mixture dry in the pan and stick a bit before adding a little liquid.
- Repeat until desired consistency is reached.
Finally, it should be quite dry, holding together like mashed potatoes; you should have formed beans but some crushed, say 50-50. Depending on the texture of your starting beans, you will adjust (by adding a can of black beans, rinsed well several times, if necessary!).
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