Bean-o, Anyone?

A few months ago I planned a Relief Society activity all about using dried beans.  It turned out really well and I thought I had discovered several new recipes to use all those dried beans in my food storage.  One of the discoveries I made was that it's possible to put dried beans in a jar, fill it with water, and then pressure cook/can it so you have your own canned beans.  With the multitude of #10 cans of dried beans in my food storage, this really excited me! 

Thursday and Friday of last week Ben was home sick, so I decided to finally learn how to use the pressure cooker my mother in law gave me for Christmas.  I started with beans.  First,  I read the directions for the pressure cooker and even did a little test with water to see how it works.  It was very exciting to watch the pressure build on the pressure gauge, then see the little rocker thingy on the top start rocking when it got up to 15 lbs. pressure.  It rocked away for several minutes and kept the pressure steady without blowing up!  Success!

Then I got out the recipe for canning dried beans and set to work.  The beans are supposed to cook at 15 lbs. pressure for 75 minutes.  By the time the pressure built up, the 75 mins. passed, and the cool down process was complete, it took about 2 1/2 hours.  A lot faster than soaking beans over night, then cooking them for a few hours!  But when I took them out of the canner, they looked like mush, or refried beans!  Not the texture I was hoping for.  And three of the six jars didn't seal, which was a huge disappointment.  I've never had problems with sealing jars when I use the boiling water bath method of canning. 

I talked to a friend about why they didn't seal and she walked me through the process of canning with a pressure cooker.  Apparently, you have to cover the jars with water, just like in a boiling water bath.  In the recipe I had, it said, "Add water to the depth of 1" for small canners and 2" for large canners."  To me, a novice pressure-cookerer, I thought this meant add 2" of water.  I guess not!  When I re-read the directions that came with the pressure cooker, it said to add three quarts of water.  So that's way more than 2"!  I don't know if that will solve the problem of the mushy beans, but I'll give it a try if I ever have another day stuck at home.

So what to do with six pint jars of mushy beans? Try out some of the bean recipes I discovered for the Relief Society activity! 

Black Bean Brownies were first on my list.  I remember them being delicious and not much different than regular brownies.  Wrong.  At least the ones I made.  First of all, don't eat them right out of the oven!  The bean flavor is overpowering.  When they cooled, the flavor was much better, but they definitely had a strange after taste.  On the plus side, they are gluten and dairy free, so if you have those issues, you might not think they're that bad.  I passed them on to my lactose-intolerant sister, via my mom, so I don't know what she thought of them. 

Applesauce Spice Pinto Bean Cake was next.  This also tasted fabulous at the RS activity.  It's full of good things:  honey, wheat flour, raisins, walnuts, applesauce, and oh yeah, pinto beans!  Ben was my only child who would even try it (I didn't even tell any of them that it had beans in it and they still wouldn't try it, it looks that nasty!) and he said, "The flavor is OK, but the texture is confusing my taste buds." I couldn't agree more!

I still want to try Harvest Pumpkin Bars, which use white bean puree, but shouldn't I have learned my lesson by now?

Millions of Peaches, Peaches for Me!

I ordered 50 lbs. of peaches this year. Why, you may ask? I usually order just one box, but I had two different sources that I wanted to compare. Hands-down winner was the box from Boy Scout Troop 1860. They sell fruit (peaches, pears, nectarines & apples) for their fundraiser every year. This year the profits were split with the Young Women in their ward; even more reason to love their peaches! The peaches were large, juicy, red, free-stone beauties. The other box were small, yellow, also free-stone, but not so juicy or pretty.

Anyway, with two boxes of ripe peaches on my hands, I invited my friend Mariann to bring over her box so we could can them together. It took seven hours, but we got through all three boxes and ended up with almost 36 quarts!

I should have taken a picture of the "before" peaches so you could see the difference. It took three "boy scout" peaches to fill a quart, and six of the other, so that gives you an idea of the size difference at least. Mariann took a few pictures of us with the peaches, but she hasn't sent them to me yet, so I couldn't include them in this post. Maybe I'll add them later.

I also have a box of pears waiting to be canned; hopefully they'll last until I get back from our trip to Denver this weekend.

Thanksgiving Feast

I've finally decided on my Thanksgiving menu. It took a while to figure out how many people were going to be here (only eight this year, sad!) and then I wanted to find a few new ideas. We will be serving:

(for recipes, click on the highlighted items)

Turkey
Stuffing
Mashed Potatoes
Gravy
Wheat Berry Waldorf Salad
Pistachio Salad
Southern Green Beans
Carrot-Sweet Potato Mash
Rolls
Pumpkin Pie
Apple Pie
Chocolate Dream Pie

YUM!!! My new finds are the Wheatberry Waldorf Salad and the Carrot-Sweet Potato Mash. I figured we'd better keep some of the old favorites, too. I wish I could celebrate with all of you! I love big gatherings on Thanksgiving. This year my parents went down to Santa Barbara, CA to visit my brother Scott's family. Corey and Tifanie are spending the day with their husband's families. Brad's brother, Pat, is going to his wife's family. We attempted to invite some friends, but I guess it wasn't meant to be, so it's just the six of us and Brad's parents. We'll have a wonderful time reflecting on all we're thankful for and eating tons of yummy food! Happy Thanksgiving Everyone!

Two Winners!

I cooked two dinners this week that my family really enjoyed.

The first, Sweet and Sour Chicken, got 12 thumbs up (2 thumbs from each of us). It takes a while to fry up all the chicken, so give yourself at least an hour.

The second, Pork and Mushroom Marengo, got 10 thumbs up (only one dissenter isn't too bad). It's a crockpot recipe, with just a little bit of prep. before hand.

Here are the recipes for both:

SWEET & SOUR CHICKEN

3 to 4 boneless, skinless chicken breasts, cut into chunks

In a bowl, make the batter for the chicken:

1 cup flour
1/2 cup cornstarch
2 tsp baking powder
1 tsp baking soda
1 1/2 cups cold water
1 tsp salt

Whisk together to remove all lumps. Dump in your chicken chunks.

In a wok (or deep fryer), heat your oil to 375*. Make sure it's hot otherwise the batter will soak up too much oil. Place chunks into the hot oil, being careful not to splash yourself. Don't put too many in otherwise they'll all stick together, and it will also cool your oil down too much. Turn the pieces over to cook the other side. Fry until golden brown

Remove the cooked chicken from the oil and put on paper towels. Once all the chicken is fried up, put in a dish and hold in a 300* oven for 10-15 minutes.

SAUCE

1 T. butter or margarine
1 carrot, sliced
½ onion, sliced
1 green pepper, cut in chunks

Melt butter over medium heat. Saute veggies until crisp-tender. Remove from heat and put veggies in a bowl.

In the same saucepan, combine:

1 1/2 cups sugar
4 Tbsp rice vinegar
6 Tbsp ketchup
4 Tbsp cornstarch
1 1/2 cup cold water

Put the saucepan over medium high heat and bring to a boil. Stir constantly so it doesn't lump up. Once it gets really thick, remove from the heat, and return veggies, plus 1 can pineapple chunks, drained. (This makes a ton of sauce. I’m planning to ½ it when I do it again.)



PORK & MUSHROOM MARENGO

3 pounds boneless pork shoulder, trimmed and cut into-1-inch cubes
1 tablespoon cooking oil
8 ounces fresh mushrooms, sliced
1/2 cup chopped onion (1 medium)
1 14-1/2-ounce can diced tomatoes, undrained
1 cup water
1 1/2 teaspoon Italian Seasoning
1 teaspoon instant chicken bouillon granules
1/4 teaspoon salt
Dash black pepper
1/3 cup cold water
3 tablespoons all-purpose flour
Hot cooked brown rice (optional)

1. In a large skillet brown meat, half at a time, in hot oil. Drain off fat. In a 3-1/2-to 5-quart slow cooker place mushrooms and onion. Add meat. In a bowl combine undrained tomatoes, the 1 cup water, the Italian seasoning, bouillon granules, salt, and pepper. Pour over all.

2. Cover and cook on low-heat setting for 8 to 10 hours or on high-heat setting for 4 to 5 hours.

3. If using low-heat setting, turn to high-heat setting. In a bowl stir together the 1/3 cup water and the flour. Stir flour mixture into pork mixture in cooker. Cover and cook on high-heat setting for 15 to 20 minutes or until thickened.

If desired, serve over hot cooked rice. Makes 6 to 8 servings.
(I skipped step 3 and it turned out great!)

Cooking Slump

Help! I've fallen into a cooking slump and I can't get up! Every Sunday, I make my grocery list for the week and put together a menu based on what I'm buying (and what I have on hand). I have all my tried and true recipes in a three ring binder and I'm getting tired of them all! I've just spent the last hour looking online for new recipes, and haven't come up with much. So, I need your help! Please, kind friends, if you love me, send me a recipe! Something not too complicated that uses normal ingredients that kids will eat that doesn't contain dairy is all I ask. Thank you!

Is it Thanksgiving yet?

I've been totally excited for Thanksgiving ever since I saw this yummy looking recipe:

http://crockpot365.blogspot.com/2008/10/pecan-topped-baked-sweet-potatoes.html

I can't wait to try it out this year. It seems the past few years we haven't been very creative with our Thanksgiving fare. We tend to stick to the traditional favorites, which isn't a bad thing because they're dishes we know we like, but this year I'm determined to try some new recipes. So...if you run across something that sounds especially delicious or you have one of your traditional favorites you want to share, comment with the recipe! I'll let you know when I've decided on my menu.