Baker Creek Heirloom Seeds

Article and photo by Jim Long

It’s the end of the season and you’ve grown great lots of Baker Creek Seed’s heirloom beans, now what do you do with them?

Beans have been a staple crop in most cultures around the world since before written history. Civilizations as diverse and separated as the Mayans, Aztecs, Romans, Persians, Indians, French and English, all relied on crops of beans for food. But in every instance, the bean is almost never eaten by itself. In our American South, bean dishes “require” a hunk of bacon or ham for seasoning, but even then, an herb or two, often savory and thyme, along with black pepper and salt are the norm.

Beans, while tasty, satisfying and fulfilling, are not that great cooked by themselves. Take baked beans for instance, I suppose you could make baked beans without any seasoning, but it would be a rather bland dish. Instead, we use tomato sauce or catsup (which contains about a dozen herbs and spices plus vinegar and sugar). Some people use bacon or ham, but if you are vegetarian, you don’t want your baked beans cluttered up with animal products.

Vegetarian Baked Beans
2 C. dried beans (sorted, rinsed and cooked)
1 onion, chopped
2 carrots, grated
1 celery stalk, diced
3 garlic cloves, minced
1/4 C. brown sugar or honey
1/2 C. ketchup
1 C. diced tomatoes
1 T. Worcestershire sauce
1 T. soy sauce
1/4 t. dried thyme
Dash freshly ground black pepper
Salt to taste

Preheat oven to 300°F. After beans are simmered until just tender, drain and add the remaining ingredients, mixing well. Pour in baking dish, cover and bake for about 2 hours. Add more water if necessary during baking. Remove cover during last 30 minutes of cooking to brown slightly on top.

I grew black beans this season and those are always a staple of our winter meals on the farm. Sometimes I cook up a batch and use them in burritos and tacos. But my favorite way of using these great little meaty textured beans, also known as turtle beans, is to cook them and serve them over rice. I season the beans while cooking with garam masala, an Indian seasoning mixture which contains coriander, cumin, black peppercorns, black cumin, dry ginger, black cardamom, cloves, cinnamon and crushed bay leaves. (Garam masala is a highly personalized seasoning blend that has as many versions as there are families in India). Once cooked, I half fill a bowl with rice, add nearly as much beans and top it all with chopped, fresh garlic, sour cream, hot pepper salsa and some soy sauce. It’s one of our favorite winter meals!

The Seneca bear beans, are from a Native American lady in Minnesota. I inquired why they are called “bear beans” and she said the lady who gave her the start told her it is the traditional bean the Seneca people cooked with bear. I’ve not tried bear, but the beans by themselves are quite delicious and the bright scarlet flowers are an attractive addition to the garden, as well.

I grew mung beans as an experiment, simply because I’d never seen them growing. They are a tiny, round bean when dried, about an eighth inch in diameter and have an outer skin. When peeled the inside of the bean is a yellow, soft-textured, somewhat sweet bean. These originated in India and are a traditional base for making Dal, which is cooked with garlic, onion and a variety of herbs and spices. Mung beans are used in soups and stews, and when ground, the bean flour is an ingredient in bean-thread or cellophane noodles. I dried mine for use in my fresh sprouting salad mixture for winter.

Chili is another cool season dish that relies primarily on beans. I use a combination of several dry beans, depending on what the garden produced during the season. I like my chili on the hot and spicy side and use fresh herbs if possible. The version below is not hot but if want to kick it up a few notches, add some fresh or dried jalapenos during the last 30 minutes of cooking.

Jim’s Vegetarian Chili
(Use your favorite combination of bean for this, but don’t omit the soybeans)
1-1/2 C. dry soybeans
1 C. dry black beans
1/2 C. dry white navy or cannellini beans
1/2 C. dry cranberry beans
1 quart, stewed or diced tomatoes
1 large onion, diced
1 carrot diced
1 stalk celery, diced
1 whole bay leaf
6 cloves garlic, crushed
4 T. chili seasoning
1-2 ancho peppers (dried poblanos)
4 sprigs fresh, or 2 t. dry, Mexican oregano (Lippia graveolens)
1 t. ground cumin
1/8 C. vegetable oil

Combine the black, white and cranberry beans. I cook mine in a pressure cooker for about 40 minutes, but you may prefer to soak the beans then simmer them until tender. Drain, but reserve the cooking liquid for later.

Heat a skillet hot and lay the ancho pepper on the dry, hot skillet (don’t use any oil for this). Hold the ancho down with a spatula or spoon, searing it well on both sides until it releases its fragrance, then set it aside.

Put the soybeans in a blender or food processor and coarsely chop them. Heat the oil in a large cooking pot and add the cracked soybeans, onion and chili seasoning. Brown the soybeans as if you were browning meat, stirring often, for about 10 minutes on medium-high heat. Add the garlic and cook for another three or four minutes.

Add the whole ancho pepper pod along with the remaining ingredients. Add the water you cooked the beans in and let the chili simmer for an hour or longer, adding more water or tomatoes as needed.

The seasonings for beans vary greatly around the world. In the Middle East, you’ll find za’atar, a combination of sumac berries, za’atar oregano and sesame seed. In India, it’s garam masala; in Mexico, the herb, epazote is common, as are Mexican oregano, hot peppers, onions and garlic.

However you choose to cook the heirloom beans you’ve grown, there is a vast assortment of herbs to choose from and a lifetime’s worth of recipes to be explored.

Questions and comments always welcome through my website: www.Longcreekherbs.com. To see what I’m growing, visit my garden blog: http://jimlongsgarden.blogspot.com. Image courtesy Jim Long.