Can you get excessive vitamin K from the amount of EVOO you would get in a bean salad? I'm wondering same with salt, if your beans are homeade. I often make a big pot of beans over the weekend and freeze them in 1 pint jars. Right now I have garbanzoes, red beans and black beans in the freezer, so very easy to throw my own "canned" beans instantly into a dish. I found out the beans thaw pretty fast in the microwave (if I take off the metal lids!). And I use maybe 1 tsp. salt for the whole batch. But I also cook them with an onion, maybe stuck with a few cloves, bay leaf and epazote, all kind of resinous flavors. I also add no salt vegetable bouillon cubes. I save the bean broth for soups. I don't know the sodium content but I'll bet it is 1/2 if not 1/4 what the canned stuff is. Since I cook all the homeade stuff I am like you Lirio, I find most pre-packaged and restaurant food way too salty for my palate. Same with sugar, I almost routinely cut sugar in recipes by 1/4 and often up to 1/3, and never notice it. I don't know for sure, but I think a lot of those dietary guidelines come about because they say "X" is good for you, and then some people eat nothing BUT X, or take super high concentrate supplements thinking that will work. And then they get the bad side effects from the nutrient taken in excess, without the fiber and other nutrients that would go along with it if you found it in a natural form. I know that is the case with vitamin C, and I think if I'm not mistaken some of the B vitamins are toxic, like maybe B6 or niacin? But anyway, I'm sure you've been round the block on all of this! But I can see where a person could overdose on garbanzo beans, I LOVE hummus! Here's Annie's Bean Salad recipe, I know she's at a huge wedding this weekend, where she made hor'doeuvres (or however you spell it) for 600! All Purpose Southwestern Corn and Black Bean Salad from "Cooking Light" magazine Makes 12 servings and keeps in the fridge for up to 5 days. Can add shredded chicken and serve as a filling for tacos or enchiladas, tostadas, whatever. Great with baked tortilla chips as an extra chunky dip. Or serve on a bed of lettuce for a salad. 1 lb. dried black beans 11 1/2 cups of water, divided 1 tsp. olive oil (I think you could get away with canola on this part) 2 tsp. cumin seeds 2 garlic cloves, minced 2 cups fresh corn kernels 2 cups chopped seeded tomato 1 cup vidalia or other sweet onion, chopped 1 cup chopped red bell pepper 1 cup chopped green bell pepper For the Dressing: 1/2 cup fresh lime juice (about 3 limes) 1 TBLSP chili powder 3 TBLSP olive oil 2 tsp. salt (I'll bet you could get away with one, or 1.5) 1 1/2 tsp. ground cumin 2 tsp. honey 3 garlic cloves, minced 2 jalepeno peppers, seeded and minced 1/3 cup chopped fresh cilantro (or parsley if you don't like cilantro, I love it!) Sort and wash beans. OK, at this point, cook however you like. The directions say combine beans and 5 1/2 cups water in a 6 quart pressure cooker. Close lid securely; bring to high pressure over high heat. Adjust heat to medium or level needed to maintain high pressure; cook 1 min. Remove beans from heat; place cooker under cold running water. Remove lid. Drain beans; rinse with cold water. Drain and cool. Lpink: "Um yeah, right. Or soak in the water overnight, and then drain off the water before cooking in new water in the crockpot." Heat 1 tsp. oil in cooker over med. heat. Add cumin seeds and 2 garlic cloves, cook 1 minute, stirring frequently. Add beans and 6 cups water. Close lid, do the whole pressure thing again, adjust heat to maintain cooking at high pressure. Cook 12 minutes. Remove from heat, place cooker under cool water to lower prssure. Remove lid, drain beans and rinse with cold water. Lpink: "Or, use ground cumin instead, and throw the beans and a couple veg. bouillon cubes in the crockpot and cook on high for about 3-4 hours, or on low for about 5. Drain the broth into a tupperware container and label it "bean broth" for chili later." Meanwhile, make the salad with the cooled beans and the chopped veggies. Then make the dressing and pour over the salad. Cover and refrigerate at least 30 min., but I would say longer. I know a pressure cooker is the BEST way to do beans, but I have never gotten the knack of it and can't be bothered. Maybe if I got on of those new fangled ones that are just for cooking I might like it, but no money and no room in the kitchen, so that's not going to happen. I like the slow cooker method though, I can make them over the weekend and forget them until they are done.

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Kim, making fresh pasta doesn't need exact measurements. In fact, they can throw you off. It's kind of like bread in that the amounts of flour to egg will vary with moisture in flour and size of eggs and weather, etc. I make this kind of basic pasta dough too. It's the kind my Nonna taught us. Well, more like what we saw her making. Forget the well of flour, unless you really want to play with that method. To start your experiment I'd use 3 eggs. Beat them in a bowl and start adding flour until you get a nice stiff dough. Not too stiff, you want to be able to knead it a little bit and work it afterward. If you were using the well you'd just beat your eggs into the middle and pull in as much flour as needed to make the stiff dough. Turn the dough out on the table and knead a few times until smooth. Cover with plastic wrap or the bowl and let rest for about ten or twenty minutes then roll out. That's it. I don't usually let it rest at all, but then I have a pasta machine to make it easy to roll out. For torellini we use 1 egg yolk to one cup of ricotta and about a tablespoon of romano for the filling. If you were using larger quanitites you could use the whole eggs. One whole egg per pound of ricotta. This is also what we use for ravioli and for lasagna for that matter. You can get much more complicated and add other things, but this is the basic. Hope this helps. Have fun.

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