> wrote in message
...
On Sep 10, 4:24 am, "Julie Bove" > wrote:
> I bought a bag of Light Red Kidney beans, the Fred Meyer brand. I cooked
> some last week using the quick soak method. Put water over them, brought
> to
> a boil, boiled for 2 minutes (as directed on the bag), then took off of
> the
> heat for an hour.
>
> Drained off the water. Rinsed. Replaced water, brought to a boil and let
> simmer. Checked at an hour. They were overcooked!
>
> I tried again tonight. Followed the same instructions but this time I
> checked at 45 minutes. They were overcooked!
>
> Has anyone else had beans recently that cooked up super quickly like this?
> Or maybe I got freak beans! I know that when I was younger, we never knew
> for sure how old the beans were that we were buying and older beans do
> take
> longer to cook. But these are even cooking up more quickly than it says on
> the bag or the sites I have seen with bean cooking instructions.

Define overcooked. Growing up we would have either fish, salmon
croquettes, or tuna noodle casserole; macaroni and cheese; dried
beans; and cornbread every Friday night for supper. Mom usually put
the beans on to cook by one o'clock and we ate around 5:30 when my dad
got home from work. I don't recall the beans ever being overcooked.
In fact, the few times mom didn't get the beans on until late there
would be complaints about the beans not being done.

As in many beans split open and all slightly mushy. Not as mushy as when I
cooked them for an hour though. I would have preferred a firmer texture but
being in a chili it wasn't as noticeable. I put in a lot of onions, green
and red peppers and ground beef.

One thing I have learned though is not to put any salt or tomatoes in with
the beans until they are done. This is something that I think I didn't know
to do when I was younger. And that could be why they didn't get soft in a
timely fashion.