Around 8 Friday evening I decided that I would make some Boston brown beans in my crock-pot. I gave the beans a rinse, added them to the water in my crock-pot and left them to soak overnight. Saturday morning around 9, I turned the crock-pot on low to cook the beans for about 4 hours. I’m following my crock-pot recipe here, one I might add that I have used many times before. So around 1pm I’m thinking that those little navy beans should be quite mushy by now since I over soaked them and then cooked them a couple of hours longer than I was supposed to. I drained the liquid off the beans, reserving the 1-1/2 cups to go back in like the recipe called for. I added my molasses, dry mustard, chili sauce and other ingredients thinking that I would leave them cooking on low till dinner and then reap the rewards.
Come diner time I turned the beans off and decided it was time to try them. They smelled divine, so I got out a spoon, picked a few out, blew on them and popped them in my mouth. AKKKK…. They were hard as bullets! Oh just great…. I could hear the man now….”Get a can opener and we’ll have the ones in the cupboard”. I turned the crock-pot back on and left the bullets simmering over night. Sunday morning (I waited till the man went out) I checked on my beans. No change. They had been cooking for 26 hours now, what the hell is wrong with them any way? They should look like paste for all they had been through. So I called my mom on the phone and tell her my bean dilemma. She had no idea why they would still be so crunchy and asked me to keep her posted on the outcome. Off to research navy beans on the Internet and to my surprise I actually found a couple of possibilities for the petrified frijoles. First it stated that if the beans are really old (I bought them last week) that no matter how much you cook them they will be hard. It also stated that if your water is hard (ours is very hard) that it too can cause the beans to be hard. Something about the acidity of the water does something to the outer shell of the bean and stops them from absorbing any moisture or liquids. So there you have it. Soak your beans in bottled water and buy fresh dried beans. Now can someone tell me how the hell to tell a fresh dried bean from a stale one? The online answer to that one is that there is no way to tell till they are cooked. Well no shit Sherlock! By then it’s too late and there’s nothing for dinner.
So tonight the man comes home thinking we are having those delicious Boston brown beans for dinner and I have to tell him he has to settle for stuffed pork chops instead.
He just looked at me and went through the motions pretending to be using a can opener…
Come diner time I turned the beans off and decided it was time to try them. They smelled divine, so I got out a spoon, picked a few out, blew on them and popped them in my mouth. AKKKK…. They were hard as bullets! Oh just great…. I could hear the man now….”Get a can opener and we’ll have the ones in the cupboard”. I turned the crock-pot back on and left the bullets simmering over night. Sunday morning (I waited till the man went out) I checked on my beans. No change. They had been cooking for 26 hours now, what the hell is wrong with them any way? They should look like paste for all they had been through. So I called my mom on the phone and tell her my bean dilemma. She had no idea why they would still be so crunchy and asked me to keep her posted on the outcome. Off to research navy beans on the Internet and to my surprise I actually found a couple of possibilities for the petrified frijoles. First it stated that if the beans are really old (I bought them last week) that no matter how much you cook them they will be hard. It also stated that if your water is hard (ours is very hard) that it too can cause the beans to be hard. Something about the acidity of the water does something to the outer shell of the bean and stops them from absorbing any moisture or liquids. So there you have it. Soak your beans in bottled water and buy fresh dried beans. Now can someone tell me how the hell to tell a fresh dried bean from a stale one? The online answer to that one is that there is no way to tell till they are cooked. Well no shit Sherlock! By then it’s too late and there’s nothing for dinner.
So tonight the man comes home thinking we are having those delicious Boston brown beans for dinner and I have to tell him he has to settle for stuffed pork chops instead.
He just looked at me and went through the motions pretending to be using a can opener…
I told him next time I'll soak the little bullets in beer......
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