Beans are nutritious, easy to make and dirt cheap
- Scott Daniels: We Ate Well and Cheaply
- September 3, 2022
- 580
I would never have believed it as a child, but I’ve become a big fan of beans, perhaps because my early exposure to beans was Stephen King level horrifying.
My mom, a struggling single mother in the 1960s, made this mess she called Amish bean soup — or Day Before Payday Soup. It was just white navy beans simmered in milk and butter. Each serving must have cost about 20 cents in today’s money. Every time she made that soup, I begged not to have to eat it. The last time I had it, I finally escaped eating it anymore by bringing it back up again all over the kitchen floor.
That, my friends, is how to make a culinary point at age 7. My brother liked the stuff and sent me a smart aleck picture of the beans in milk he made last week, just to make me retch.
The baked beans we had were out of a can and flavored with a sliver of hot dog, which was weird but edible if drowned in ketchup. To this day, lima beans are the single food I cannot gag down on a dare. If I remember right, they were from a can and presented with more of that sneaky butter.
From these experiences I learned to respect the food choices of my children. If they said they didn’t like something after trying it, so be it. Children’s palates are unfinished experimentation centers. Early on, they are programmed to like sweet things, and it takes until at least the teen years for most of us to really learn what we will like as adults. Most of us don’t get there until well into our 20s or even 30s.
So navy beans in milk, baked beans with elusive factory meat and limas — that’s the total of what I knew about beans until well into adulthood.
Beans are enormously nutritious, easy to make in endless iterations and dirt cheap. A typical serving of pinto beans provides a good mix of protein, fiber, iron, calcium, magnesium, phosphorous and potassium, delivered at about 245 calories per cup.
Beans have a bit of a bad reputation, immortalized in many songs and limericks. Honestly, I haven’t found them to be such a musical fruit, but your mileage may vary. I understand that if you buy beans as bargain basement dried things in a bag, skipping the overnight soak helps. Cover them with cold water, bring to a rolling boil and then turn the heat off. Leave them alone like this for a couple of hours and they’re ready to use with less worry about later rumbles. This may be an old wive’s tale but give it a go.
I like to simmer navy beans in a fragrant broth and serve them with roasted vegetables and a vinaigrette. I make a mean refried pinto bean dish with garlic, cumin, onions and chilies in adobo. I like just about anything in a can marked Bush’s.
Over Labor Day, if you have to bring a side dish to the picnic, you might want to try these amazing Cuban black beans, here adapted to a soup. You can skip the initial bit and buy canned beans.
BLACK BEAN AND HAM HOCK SOUP
1 pound dried black beans
1 smoked ham hock
3 quarts water
2 tablespoons olive oil
1 large yellow onion, finely chopped
2 carrots, small dice
2 celery stalks, small dice
2 teaspoons ground cumin
4 cloves garlic, sliced thin
1 fourteen-ounce can tomato sauce
2 dried bay leaves
1 dried poblano or ancho chili
2 teaspoons kosher salt
1 teaspoon dried oregano
2 teaspoons kosher salt
1 teaspoon pepper
Red wine vinegar
or lime juice
Sour cream
Place the beans in a bowl, cover with water by 3 inches and soak overnight.
Simmer the ham hock in 3 quarts water for 1 hour. Heat a skillet and add the olive oil, onions, carrots and celery. Cook until softened, about 5 minutes. Stir in the cumin and garlic and cook another 2 minutes, then add this mixture to the ham broth. Drain the soaked beans and add them to the pot. Cook 30 minutes.
Add the tomato sauce, bay leaves, dried chili, oregano, and salt and pepper. Simmer another hour. Remove the ham hock, pick any meat from the bone and return it to the pot.
Serve with a dash of red wine vinegar or lime juice and a dollop of sour cream.