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beans 2: the new batch posted: Fri 2012-06-15 01:14:02 tags: what I'm eating
q.v. batch 1

1. Costing

beanpriceozcups
Conchita great northern1.41 12 2.75
Iberia chickpeas 1.59 12 2.0
Pubilx pintos 1.69 16 3.25
Iberia black 1.09 12 2.25
2x Pubilx lentils 1.39 16 3.5
Total: 8.56 84 17.25

I ended up with more beans (by weight and nominal dry measure) for less money. I also decided to depart from my usual rice selection, namely Success "family size" boil-in-bag brown rice at $4.19/32oz box, in favor of Iberia long grain brown rice, at $1.57/2# bag. From there it was a slippery slope to grabbing a 5# bag of Riceland enriched extra-long grain white rice at under half-price ($1.99, $2.20 off regular price). I don't really even have storage for this much rice. Also, a bag each of frozen broccoli "cuts" and chopped spinach, because that's a nice addition for the cook stage.

"Sorting" was pointless busywork last time, and we'll catch any bugs in the pre-soak rinse. that brings us to...

3. Portioning:
Roughly 1/4 to 1/3 cup per type of non-lentil bean, per division, into 7 gallon-size zip baggies - i.e. a bit over a cup dry per baggie. (Quart baggies would have been ample.) The lentil packaging claims ~14 servings at 1/4 cup per serving per package, but by my measure it's more like 2.5 cups per package, or a bit over 2/3 cup lentils per baggie. For purposes of water measure, figure each division is 2.2 cups dry beans. We'll be keeping the lentils out until the cook stage proper, to avoid turning them to mush.

4-5. Soak / Cook:
I stopped blagging notes with round 1.4, but it seems Volume 1 Chapter III was where I most closely perfected the basic one-pot procedure. My base dry bean portions were ~2.8 cups, the soak stage got 3 cups of water, I poured off the post-soak broth, drank half a cup and returned ~2 cups to the pot, adding 2 more cups water to cook. Given a new base dry bean measure of 2.12 cups, I should soak with 2.25 cups, and add 2 cups post-soak to cook.

The question I left off with, "how do I use up this much beans without getting sick of them" turns out to be moot - I liked the end result enough to eat at least a couple dinners based on beans every week. I wasn't keen on beans served porridge-style with quinoa, but rice and beans is a comfortable mix. I often scolmphed down more than half the basic bean stage before I got around to prepping rice to go with it.

So I think my goal with this batch will be to fine-tune the main bean prep, and hopefully figure out a one-pot beans+rice procedure that results in a good ratio of beans and greens to rice. Possible variations involve white wine, fresh herbs (dill, rosemary, parsley, thyme) and capers.