I purchased a new Presto last week, and have been having fun with it.
My husband suddenly became a vegetarian a few weeks ago, after eating
meat with gusto all his life, and following Atkins pretty carefully
for a year and a half. He saw a PETA exhibit outside his office one
Friday and he realized didn't want to eat animals. He's always looked
down on "hippie freak vegetarians", since he grew up in Berkeley and
lived there until age 36 (only to move to Oakland, where all the
hippie freak vegetarians moved when Berkeley got too expensive). So
his sudden change is remarkable. Be careful what you scorn, you may
become it one day.

Since I have learned a thing or two in my 42 years, I did NOT remark.
I just started cooking beans, which I rarely did during his 18 month
Atkins program.

Sometimes the d****d beans take three hours or more, even with careful
pre-soaking. I got sick of it, decided to spring for the Presto. Yes I
could have tried E-Bay or garage sales but I wanted a new one with a
warranty, and my local hardware store had it in stock, no waiting.

The Brazilian daycare lady taught me how to make pintos her way - the
secret is to fry the onions and garlic in oil, separate from beans,
about 1/2 hour before the beans are done. Add and simmer a while
longer. She also uses bouillon cubes, which I do occasionally. Today I
tried cooking the beans without the cube, and using aromatics instead
to generate flavor. They turned out creamy and good.

Pressure Cooker Pinto Beans

Pick over and rinse 2 cups dry pintos. Soak in water (to cover by 2-3
inches) either overnight, or bring to a boil, boil 2 minutes, turn off
heat and let sit one hour. Drain off soaking water when ready to cook,
and give another rinse.

Put pintos in pressure cooker with one peeled and diced carrot, one
stalk chopped celery, one bay leaf, and several sprigs of parsley. Add
5 1/2 cups of water (the Presto pressure cooker manual suggests less
water but I didn't want to be sorry later), close pressure cooker and
heat according to your cooker's instructions. My Presto manual claims
that pintos need 25 minutes to cook under pressure; let it cool on its
own.

Meanwhile chop two onions, saute on medium heat in olive oil (or
whatever - non-vegetarians could use bacon grease, mmmm) until golden;
add chopped garlic to taste - I used 4 cloves. Make sure the onion is
quite cooked but not burned.

When the pressure cooker has cooled and it's safe to open, add the
onion garlic mixture and simmer for five minutes. Salt and pepper to
taste - you're going to need more salt than you realize. I think I
must have put at least 1 1/2 teaspoons or more.

Fish out the parsley sprigs and bay leaf. Serve over rice or with
tortillas.

Leila

No cumin?

No cumin?

"zuuum" > wrote in message >...
> No cumin?

Not in the babysitter's recipe - but black pepper is great, which I
forgot to list.

Of course cumin would probably taste just fine. However, I've noticed
that pintos by themselves have a very beguiling flavor. A friend of
Northern European descent served them cooked in water with an onion,
nothing else, and we scarfed it down with gusto, squealing at how good
they were.

Leila

"zuuum" > wrote in message >...
> No cumin?

Not in the babysitter's recipe - but black pepper is great, which I
forgot to list.

Of course cumin would probably taste just fine. However, I've noticed
that pintos by themselves have a very beguiling flavor. A friend of
Northern European descent served them cooked in water with an onion,
nothing else, and we scarfed it down with gusto, squealing at how good
they were.

Leila

So...who knows how long (centuries, eons, years, months, what?) it takes to
cook these babies in a crockpot? My son says to put some lard (oh, great) and
"other seasonings" (whatever the hell that means) in the crockpot with them and
then it takes forever for them to cook.
I bought a 12 lb bag of pintos at Sam's and am planning on a test run before he
comes home so any clues would be appreciated.

Muchas gracias!

ojunk (Mama2EandJ) wrote in
:

> So...who knows how long (centuries, eons, years, months, what?) it
> takes to cook these babies in a crockpot? My son says to put some
> lard (oh, great) and "other seasonings" (whatever the hell that means)
> in the crockpot with them and then it takes forever for them to cook.
> I bought a 12 lb bag of pintos at Sam's and am planning on a test run
> before he comes home so any clues would be appreciated.
>
> Muchas gracias!
>
>
>

Basic Crockpot Beans


2 onions, chopped
2-3 cloves garlic
1 lb dried beans, soaked 4 hours or over night (overnight is best)
in water to cover by approx 2 inches

2 bay leaves
2-4 strips bacon chopped up


Put in crockpot and cook about 4-6 hours on high or overnight on low.
Beans should be soft (small white beans take longest, pinto beans shorter)
Add spices, veggies, etc. (see below) and cook about another hour.

Spices:, veggies, etc: 1) 1 tsp dried cumin, 1 tsp paprika, 1/4 tsp
cayenne pepper, 1-2 Tbsp. soy sauce, a few chili peppers, chopped, chopped
green pepper,can chopped tomotoes,some frozen corn.(Good with black beans)
1/2 tsp liquid smoke tastes good added. 2) 1 tsp cumin, 1 can chopped
green chilis, chopped green pepper, 1 Tbsp soy sauce (good with white
beans). 3) 1-2 Tbsp soy sauce, 1/4 cup molasses, 1/4 tsp cayenne, 1/2 tsp
dried mustard, (good with pinto or black eyed peas)


--
Last year's nuts must go.
- Michael Odom

On 28 Aug 2004 14:12:17 GMT, ojunk (Mama2EandJ) wrote:

>So...who knows how long (centuries, eons, years, months, what?) it takes to
>cook these babies in a crockpot? My son says to put some lard (oh, great) and
>"other seasonings" (whatever the hell that means) in the crockpot with them and
>then it takes forever for them to cook.

The older the beans, the longer they take to cook. There is a point at
which beans are so old that no amount of cooking will make them tender.

Here is a good, basic recipe for cooking the beans:

Rinse and cull the beans (about a pound or so of them will make a nice big
batch)
Place in a crock pot with a good inch to inch and a half of water above the
top of the beans
cut up onions and garlic and stir it into the pot (minced, chopped, doesn't
matter)
Do not add salt at this point (it will toughen up the skins)
feel free to add chopped hot peppers (jalapeno, habaneros, whatever floats
your boat)
Stir this all around to mix it up a bit and let it cook overnight in the
crock pot

A faster alternative is a bean pot in the oven. I do exactly the same
process with a covered bean pot (olla IIRC). Then preheat the oven to about
350, put the bean pot in the oven, and leave it there for around two hours.
The beans should come out tender and flavourful.

Don't forget to salt the beans before serving. You can add lard for
flavour if you want, but it's not necessary, just make sure you replace it
with peppers, onions, garlic, or other herbs for more flavour.

--
Siobhan Perricone
Humans wrote the bible,
God wrote the rocks
-- Word of God by Kathy Mar

ojunk (Mama2EandJ) wrote in message >...
> So...who knows how long (centuries, eons, years, months, what?) it takes to
> cook these babies in a crockpot? My son says to put some lard (oh, great) and
> "other seasonings" (whatever the hell that means) in the crockpot with them and
> then it takes forever for them to cook.
> I bought a 12 lb bag of pintos at Sam's and am planning on a test run before he
> comes home so any clues would be appreciated.
>
> Muchas gracias!


My crockpot recipe/instruction book says you can't cook the beans in
the crockpot, you gotta cook 'em first in a regular pot on a stove
before adding to a recipe such as chili beans or cassoulet.

Mark Bittman of the NY Times, for one, has given a crockpot recipe for
cassoulet using uncooked white beans. Google beans and crockpot in RFC
and you will find people who swear they cook beans in a crockpot all
the time. I have never had success with this. One year I lived in a
tenement in NYC when the building's gas got turned off for a month, in
winter. The electricity was on. I thought a crockpot would solve my
problems, and tried to cook lentils. The damned things never softened.
Chickpeas take 4 times as long as lentils.

I wouldn't waste your time. But perhaps it depends on the crockpot
brand. I use the original, Rival. Yes, I pre-soaked.

It's my theory that the low temperature setting just doesn't cook the
things enough, that you need a certain temperature to get them to cook
through. Too low and they don't cook.

Leila

Many thanks for your responses. I have saved some of them for my experiment. It
is interesting that some say the crock pot works on pintos and others say it
doesn't. Julio (who is adopted just recently) says when he was a kid they
cooked them in the CP all the time. Anyway I will give it a whirl...soak
overnight tonight and then CP them tomorrow on high so I can keep an eye on
them. Will post results. I have a new CP and the temps on it seem higher than
the temps on my old one that I bought years ago and which refused to die. I
bought a new one just because the old one looked ratty after so many years of
use.

Thanks again.

Another thing to keep in mind is that acidity (including
tomatos) will prevent beans from cooking.

This is in fact why you can cook a batch of chili for
a really long time without the beans turning to mush.

Steve

BubbaBob > wrote:

> (Steve Pope) wrote:

>> Another thing to keep in mind is that acidity (including
>> tomatos) will prevent beans from cooking.
>>
>> This is in fact why you can cook a batch of chili for
>> a really long time without the beans turning to mush.

>So will salt.

Hmm... maybe, but not to the extend acid does. I generally
add salt to a pot of beans about 10 minutes before it's done
and they will continue to cook.

> But who would put beans in chile?

Protein source, if it's vegetarian chili.

> Or tomatoes?

I make a few types of chili; one is based on beans, tomatoes,
and dried chili powders of various sorts (pasilla and New Mexico,
usually). I rather like it.

Steve