Beans and fresh tomatoes

Recipes: Fresh tomato sauce, Beans in fresh tomato sauce

Here's another delicious way to use an abundance of fresh, beautiful heirloom tomatoes, Yesterday I found myself faced with a growing pile of ripe ones, and a few nearly over-ripe, with more about to come in from the front yard. What a huge harvest, and what a shame it would be to let even a few go to waste! First thing in the morning, I separated out the fruit that needed to be used right away - red, red-green, orange, yellow - and put together a simple sauce that would simmer over a low burner until it thickened.

Fresh Tomato Sauce 

Choose a medium to large Dutch oven with a cover. Turn the heat on under it at medium and add 1/4 cup extra virgin olive oil. When the oil is hot, but not smoking, add two cloves of garlic, sliced, and turn off the burner. Let it sit to cool down while you chop the tomatoes.

Chop a lot of tomatoes into roughly one-inch pieces. I used about fifteen large tomatoes. Put all the chopped tomatoes into the pot and turn the heat to medium. Add 1 teaspoon sea salt and 1 teaspoon dried oregano (or 1 tablespoon chopped fresh oregano). If you like, chop up one small moderately hot pepper - I used a red padron - and add it to the pot. Stir everything well. Once it starts to simmer, turn the heat down to low and set the cover on askew. Let it simmer for at least one hour (I simmered mine for two hours *see note), stirring all the way to the bottom now and then.

Note: My tomatoes are particularly juicy, so there's a lot of liquid when I chop and cook them. The goal in simmering the sauce for a long time is to concentrate the liquid so the sauce thickens and has a very deep and complex tomato flavor. If your tomatoes don't produce a lot of juice, you should cook them about one hour before proceeding with the next step. It took two hours for mine to begin to thicken.

When the sauce starts to thicken, add 1/4 cup dry white wine, like a Sauvignon Blanc. Stir it in and simmer uncovered for a few minutes while the alcohol burns off. Then partially cover the pot again and simmer for another 30 minutes to one hour, or whenever the sauce reached the consistency you want.

This sauce can be successfully frozen in freezer bags or a freezer container for about two months. Or, you can use some of it right away and freeze the rest, which is what I did. It makes a delicious sauce for pasta too!

So then I had this sauce, which I let sit covered and cooling on the stove until I decided what to make for dinner. The smell was gorgeous! A couple of hours before dinner, beans with tomato sauce came to mind. Lucky thought!

Beans with Fresh Tomato Sauce

Here are a few things I've learned about dried beans:

• Buy the freshest you can get. It seems funny to think of dried beans being fresh, but there's a world of difference between a bean that's been sitting on a shelf for years and one that was grown and dried recently. Old beans take much longer to cook. Sometimes they never get tender. Fresh beans have a more delicious flavor and they're easier to digest. While some supermarket beans are fine, you never really know how long they've been around. I buy most of my dried beans from Rancho Gordo. Here's their website http://www.ranchogordo.com/  They also have a store in the Ferry Building in San Francisco, if you're in the neighborhood. Here's what one of their packages looks like - gotta love the label!
• You don't have to soak dried beans. If you soak, you must pour off the soaking water and you lose some valuable nutrition. It works just fine to rinse off the dried beans and then cover them by about two inches with fresh water. Simmer until they're tender.
• Some beans cook faster than others. Lima beans, which I used for this recipe, cook in about an hour or a little more. So do black-eyed peas. Other beans take maybe an hour and a half or two hours, IF they are fresh dried beans.
• Never add salt to beans until they are almost done. Salt keeps them from getting tender.
• Add some leftover bacon drippings or a little lard to the beans while you cook them. I save my bacon drippings every time I make bacon (BLTs this time of year!) and keep them in a covered jar in the fridge.
• It's worth it to grow an epizote bush outside your kitchen door - in a pot or in the ground. Epizote is a plant that grows wild in Mexico and is easy to grow here in northern California. It is perennial and comes back every spring. Many bean-eating cultures put a big sprig of epizote in their beans while cooking, and they say it helps with digestion. In my opinion, it's true.

Ingredients for the beans:

• 1/2 pound dried beans (I used large Lima beans)
• bacon drippings, if you have it
• epizote, if you have it
• the fresh tomato sauce you just made (yum!)
• cut up sausage, like chorizo, optional
• sea salt (add last)

In a medium large Dutch oven with a cover, put 1/2 pound rinsed dried Lima beans and cover them with water so that the water is about 2 inches above the beans. Turn the heat on medium and bring the water to a boil. Add a tablespoon of bacon drippings and a big sprig of epizote. Turn the heat down to low and let simmer, covered but with the cover ajar, for 30 minutes.

Add a half cup of the fresh tomato sauce to the beans, and a half cup of cut up sausage, if you wish. The beans will be equally delicious without sausage. Stir to combine. Continue to simmer until the beans are almost tender (you have to taste them at this point). While the beans are simmering, watch the liquid, and add a little more water if the beans absorb it all. There should be 'gravy' with the beans at the end.

When the beans are almost tender, add 1/2 teaspoon sea salt, stir, and continue cooking until beans are very tender. Serve in bowls with a little topping of fresh chopped tomato if you have tons, like I do.

Buon appetito!

Beans 'n Greens (or keeping it soulful)

Recipes: Spicy beans 'n wilted greens, Beets and avocado salad

There's something soulful about stews in the winter. Even if it's not cold where you are, but especially if it is, a steaming bowl of stew warms like nothing else and feeds the homebody in us. Even better, the house smells wonderful. A long time ago, I had a cooking friend whom I traded dinners with - once a month our families ate together, switching from his home to mine and back every other month. For fun we called his home The Seaview Grill (he lived on a street named Seaview) and mine The Beans 'n Greens Cafe. I love to cook good wholesome country food, and that's what beans and greens are.

This dish calls for dried beans, which should be soaked in water overnight and then cooked in fresh water for 3 or 4 hours the next day. This takes longer than most things we make in this blog 'kitchen', but it is well worth it. Of course, canned beans could be used but the taste and texture would not be at all the same. Here are some ways to manage the time needed to make this dish fabulous.

1. The beans can be soaked and cooked up to three days in advance, for instance on a Saturday-Sunday when you're just hanging around anyway. The soaking and cooking are both "hands-free" in that you don't have to do anything but occasionally give it a stir (in the case of the cooking) and make sure the pot doesn't cook dry. When they are tender, cool the beans in their liquid, cover, and store the whole thing in the fridge until you need it. When you are ready to finish it, warm it gently and then add the greens as indicated in the recipe below. Dinner will be ready in 30 minutes.

2. The beans can be soaked overnight and then cooked in a slow cooker or crockpot while you are at work. Add 1/2 cup more water than the recipe calls for and bring the beans to a simmer in a stove-top pot before pouring them into the slow cooker in the morning. Set the cooker to low and they will be done when you get home. You can then ladle them back into your stove-top pot and proceed with adding the greens as indicated in the recipe.

3. The entire dish, including greens, can be made in advance when you have time, cooled, and refrigerated for up to 3 days. Gently reheat it before serving. Like most stews, this one benefits from some resting time. Flavors deepen and meld. Mmmm.

4. If you have forgotten to soak the beans overnight but still have enough hours to cook them on the day you want to serve them, you can use this emergency substitute for soaking. It's supposedly not "as good", but I've used it many times and I'm not sure I see a difference. Put the beans in a pot with water to cover plus 1 inch. Bring it to a boil on the stove and boil for 1 minute. Turn off the heat, cover the pot, and let sit for 1 hour. You're ready to go and can follow the recipe below for cooking.

Spicy Beans 'n Wilted Greens

Adapted from a recipe in the magazine Bon Appetit

• 1/2 pound (about 1 1/2 cups) dried chickpeas (garbanzos) or 1 cup dried white beans. I used chickpeas in the stew pictured above.
• 4 tablespoons olive oil
• 4 anchovy fillets, preferably packed in oil, drained
• 1/2 teaspoon crushed red pepper flakes
• 3 garlic cloves, thinly sliced
• 1 medium or 1/2 large onion, thinly sliced
• 2 celery stalks, finely chopped
• 1 sprig fresh rosemary
• Sea salt and freshly ground black pepper
• 1 piece Parmesan rind (don't skip this!), plus shaved Parmesan for serving
• 1 small bunch kale, washed, big stems removed, and coarsely chopped
• 1 small bunch chard, washed, big stems removed, and coarsely chopped (You can use other greens here. I used some sorrel with the kale and chard. You could also use mustard greens or spinach)
• 1 cup arugula (rocket)
• A squeeze of fresh lemon juice

Rinse the dried beans and inspect them for small stones. Put them in a pot with water to cover plus one inch, cover the pot, and let soak overnight (or use the emergency method above). Once they are soaked, drain the remaining water off the beans.

Heat the oil in a medium to large Dutch oven over medium heat. Cook the anchovies, chiles, and garlic, stirring occasionally, until the garlic is soft and the anchovies are dissolved, about 4 minutes. Add the onion, celery, and rosemary. Season with salt and pepper. Increase the heat to medium-high and cook, stirring occasionally, until the onion is very soft and golden brown, about 10 minutes.

Add the Parmesan rind, the soaked beans, and 5 cups water. Bring to a boil, reduce the heat, and simmer, stirring occasionally and adding more water as needed, until the beans are tender and beginning to fall apart, 3 to 4 hours. The length of time needed to cook depends on the age and freshness of the dried beans. It's helpful if your time is a little flexible.

Lightly crush some beans to give the stew a creamy consistency, and remove the Parmesan rind. Mix in your greens and half of the arugula. Season with salt and pepper and cook until the greens are wilted, about 8 minutes.

In a separate bowl, toss the remaining arugula with a few drops of olive oil, a squeeze of lemon, and a bit of salt and pepper. Serve the stew in bowls, topped with the arugula and shaved Parmesan.

You might like something cool and savory with the richness of the soup. Since there is an abundance of greens in the stew, a salad of beets and avocado provides a good contrast in color, taste, and texture.

 

Beets and Avocado Salad

Use canned beets, or roast beets while the beans are cooking as indicated below.

To roast beets: Preheat oven to 400 degrees. Cut leaves and long tails off the beets, leaving one inch at both ends. Brush any dirt off the beets and wrap each one in aluminum foil. Put all in a baking dish with 1 inch of water in the bottom.  Roast in the oven for 1 hour. When they are tender, let them cool, unwrap them, and rub each one with a paper towel to remove the skin (this will be messy - wear an apron). Cut and toss with a little olive or walnut oil and a bit of balsamic vinegar while still warm.

 

To compose the salad, lay a few crisp lettuce leaves on a plate. Top with beets and avocado halves filled with balsamic vinegar. Grind a bit of black pepper over it all. Enjoy with your wonderful soulful stew.

 

The Payoff

Low in fat and high in fiber and protein, chickpeas (garbanzo beans) are a superfood!

Greens are right up there with chickpeas - low in calories and fat, high in protein and fiber. You are going to be gorgeous, dahlink!

Beets help keep your blood pressure low and your heart healthy. Yay beets!

 

The beans 'n greens and the beet and avocado salad are both gluten-free.

You can make the beans 'n greens vegetarian by eliminating the anchovies.

 

Buon appetito!