These Two Hands

I had already started my kidney beans soaking for bean salad when I learned there was a pressure cooker/canner up for grabs in my neighborhood (more on that later), so at one in the morning – because I never sleep – I went ahead and made the pickled bean salad I’d planned on.

One pound of store-bought dry kidney beans, two-thirds of the latest bean harvest, and all the rest of my homegrown red onions yielded five quarts of lovely bean salad. I reduced the sugar by more than half (because sweet beans seems weird to me) and made it brown, added some coriander and other herbs and extra salt. I was pleased that I could fit all five quarts in my pasta pot – that means that for smallish batches I don’t have to fill up that enormous, 5-gallon water bath tub and spend two hours waiting on it to come to a boil.

The salsa in the front is some gazpacho I’d made from homegrown produce (well ok, the cukes and onions anyway). Nobody but me is fond of cold soups, and I’d had as much as I could handle. I added extra salt, lemon juice, vinegar, and sriracha chili sauce, and voila it’s salsa.

I’m so excited to try the beans, though I know I have to wait until the fresh produce is gone in the garden. Otherwise, what’s the point of canning?

This entry was posted on Wednesday, August 25th, 2010 at 10:12 am and is filed under Crafts, food, homesteading. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.