Bean Jar Soup

[e_moon60]

Years ago, when we lived in a different place with a reliable water supply, we grew a garden that included beans to dry for later.   Because we were trying things out, initially, we grew a small amount of several varieties, and that meant--once they were dry and in jars--that we didn't have enough of any one of them to make a big pot of bean soup

Comments

[e_moon60]

And the big bean jar is now full again, plus a smaller one because I bought one more pound bag of beans than would fit (well--about half of it fit.) There's now 4 cups of mixed beans in the smaller jar. Red kidney beans, small red beans (different red, more brown), black beans, small white beans, black-eyed peas, pinto beans, Anasazi beans (more pinto than pinto--dark-to-red brown on white--rather like very small scarlet runner beans).

The multi-bean mixes they now sell are filled in with split peas or lentils, but I don't like lentils in my bean soup. Lentils are lentils (though I usually mix a few beans in for more flavor) and peas are peas. But that's just me--others may like them mixed in.

[saare_snowqueen]

We get a very limited choice of beans here on Saaremaa and Estonia, which is peculiar, in a way, because we have the right climate to grow many of the ones I like best. Borlottis are you listening.

Am going to a conference over the weekend on Promoting Shorter Supply Chains for Local Foods. Going to buttonhole some of my farmer friends about this serious gap.

[coalboy]

My mother made a Portuguese 7-bean soup but only seldom: it had smoked ham hocks in it as well & getting the meat off the bones was a chore. She got the recipe in Honolulu, where cooking something that long was not fun because of heat. But oh so delicious!