The Great Chili Experiment

I guess I've never before had a kidney bean that tasted the way it was supposed to. I have always just opened a can of the red beans from the store. There I found a gooey icky sauce and bland, salty beans with very little flavor and texture, most of which came from the skins. But, take a cup and a quarter (you get 5 cups in the 2 pound bag) of Gianforte Farms kidney beans, prepare them right, and you have a nutty delight with just enough body that you can actually chew and oooh, taste it.

I wish my mom and big sis were still alive. They would have known what to do with dried beans. To me, they were totally foreign. I looked in the five different cookbooks on my shelf, and not one of them told me how to prepare these beans. So thankful for the Internet. I guess I knew they had to soak overnight and then simmer a long time, but I felt much more confident after reading it on the web. I also learned a few things about doing it right. Don't cook your beans in the same liquid that they soak in. Drain and rinse. Some of the hard to digest carbohydrates leech into the soaking liquid - easier digestion means less bean music later. There is some disagreement as to when to salt your beans. I took the advice that salting after cooking results in softer beans and less gas. My beans were easy to chew with just a little crunch - a nice mouth experience. My affinity for salt left my tastebuds a little disappointed, so I added a good dash of my hops and beer infused sea salt (watch for that in the Bounty this summer) and was pleased that I did.

Before I left for work in the morning, I opened a bottle of Middle Ages Brewing's Syracuse Pale Ale. Not to drink, no, I poured it over my dry beans. Hint - pour slowly. When the beer hits the beans, it reacts with the sugar in the beans and foams. I added just enough water to cover the beans and let them soak while I was at work. When I got home, I drained and rinsed the beans, opened another bottle of beer, and set the beans to simmer. Oh, the beans simmered in water. This time I drank the beer. Eat and drink local!

While the beans were simmering, I browned a pound of Drover Hill ground beef. There was almost no grease to drain away. But since I was going to put all the beans into the chili, I poured the tiny bit of grease into the bean pot to add flavor and keep the pot from boiling over. Back to the beef... of course, green peppers are out of season. Luckily I had some chopped peppers and onions that I had put away in the freezer this summer. Added 1/2 cup of these to the beef and simmered briefly. Tomatoes - oh, what a year for tomatoes. We managed to get a few fresh out of the garden before the blight hit, but not enough to can. So I begrudgingly took a 28 oz can of whole canned tomatoes out of the store panty and added that to the meat. 2 Tablespoons of chili powder, a good dash of red pepper flakes, and a little black pepper. Drain the beans and add them to the pot. Salt to taste. Simmer to blend flavors and enjoy. The result was incredible. The nutty flavor of the beans, like I said, was new to me but I truly enjoyed it.

We ate the chili with the white bread from Whispering Pines bakery because I totally forgot about making the cornbread. I can't say enough about how fresh that white bread was even on the third day after delivery. Yummm - It will definitely be on every Bounty order.

There is just enough left over chili to eat with the Drover Hill hotdogs on another day for lunch. Maybe I'll make the cornbread for that day.