I've cooked anasazi beans but I don't know that I've ever had either great northern or cranberry beans! I'd kind of say somewhere between white beans and pintos. They're beans. :)

High falutin' pinto beans.

Well, I was hoping they would not taste like pinto beans as I don't care for those much, but as I said they were a gift. My favorite ones are Great Northern and Cranberry beans or as we used to call them Horticulture beans. Thanks for your replies.

Sue

I like them. They are a mild bean. And they don't need to be soaked overnight. Just a rinse and pick through to be sure there isn't any debris in them. Flavor with some onion and anything else you like in your beans.

They don't taste exactly like pinto - they are very mild tasting as others have said.

Marilyn, we grow a lot of those cranberry beans. We also called them Horticultural beans, but Elery's southern family called them "October" beans. They're all good, I put 35 quarts in the freezer this fall and Elery shelled every one, bless his heart, he loves beans.

As Lpinkmountain says, they don't taste exactly like a pinto. Nothing does except a pinto, of course, but to me they are reminiscent of that, although milder, so don't pass them up. I like pinto beans, though, so there's that.

Annie

Because pinto is sort of the base bean for me--it's a staple of SoCal cuisine--most beans for me fall into two categories. Somewhere on a scale of pintoness, like white beans, canellini, and lots between, and nothing like pinto like black beans or adzuki's. So when we say it's like a pinto, it's not pinto flavor. It's just a similar family, and not like black beans or garbanzos. :)

Agreed. The flavor is similar to pintos, my favorite bean. I've purchased them a few times but, generally, the Anasazi beans cost more than pintos so I grab the pintos. Not special enough to warrant paying more, IMO.

It sounds like I will like them if they are mild in flavor. I may fix them when I can share them with some of the family, as here, I will be the only one that could eat them. Thanks for all of your replies.

Sue

cl_lantro, I buy them when I can find them, because I never think about fixing beans until the last minute. We will be going back to Arizona in a couple of weeks, and I will stock up on them while there. I can't find them here in Ohio.

Tami, it's been a while, but I've actually seen them in Aldi. I think that's where I last purchased them but that was probably a couple years ago.

I live in Wisconsin and beans just aren't a popular item here. It can be tough to find decent half-way fresh pintos. A couple of years ago, I had a local Mexican restaurant get me a big bag of them--25#'s IIRC. Lovely fresh beans. Lately, I have good luck finding fresh-ish pintos at Dollar Tree, of all places. But forget about finding anything else beyond Great Northerns, black beans, kidney beans & red beans (if you're feeling lucky!). Even navy beans are hard to find. Plenty of yucky split peas and lentils, though.

Pretty much the same here! And who knows how fresh they are, no matter what store I find them in here. I don't often used dried beans, because I have to plan ahead. I'm lucky if I think about it early enough for the Anasazi beans! I really don't know much about cooking dried beans.

No plan? You need a pressure cooker (or one of those Insta-Pots). I can have cooked pintos in 30 minutes w/ a PC. No soaking, either. I just have stove-top, old school vintage Presto Meat-Master. It's just like the one Mom had so I always think of her when I drag it out to use.

If the family had to rely on me planning ahead, we'd never have beans!

cilantro, that's odd that Wisconsin doesn't have so many beans, and neither does Ohio. Michigan is one of the top producers of dried beans, last year Michigan produced more than 250,000 tons of edible beans.

Michigan is the second largest producer of total beans, but first in the nation in the production of Black Beans, Cranberry Beans and Small Red Beans and second in the nation in the production of navy beans.

There is a place near me called Carlson-Arbogast Farms, I can get anything from Mayacoba to Cannellini, they're sold at all the local farmer's markets and grocery stores.

Good thing I like beans!

Marilyn, any leftover beans make great refried beans or bean dip....

Annie

If you don't have a lot of choice in dried beans, go to where the vegans shop. :) There must be a coop or hippie store or something... Some farmers also sell through Amazon. When we hit a drought of Adzuki beans I got 10# that way. Since dried beans keep and ship, the only reason for lack of selection is lack of demand. Start nagging your grocery managers!

My beans were purchased in Shirley, Arkansas! I get my cranberry beans from Walmart and also Kroger also sells them here in Indiana.

Sue

Good idea, Plllog. I'll check the co-op to see what their selection of dried beans looks like. I seldom go there because it's way on the north side of town, buried in the old section of town with narrow and one-way streets and I almost never venture up there unless we're out hitting garage sales.

Annie, Wisconsin does produce kidney beans...grown in the western part of the state. I think the climate/ weather is probably why more beans aren't grown here. We have many summers that aren't (summers) and can have long spells of wet/ rainy /dreary weather usually in late summer. Not conducive to producing dried beans. (Most summers, we turn the AC on for maybe 3-4 days total; often not to cool but to de-humidify!) I've actually had drying beans on the vine start to sprout while still in the pod on the vine. (I grow Fortex pole beans and like to save some for seed.) WI is mostly Zone 4. I'm in central WI. Southwest Wisconsin is Zone 5, drier and summer can be downright hot.

I've seen Mayacoba beans in Aldi and have tried them a time or two. Never know what Aldi will have or not have. Last trip (last week), all they had were Great Northerns! You can usually count on them to have dried black beans and pintos but I guess they needed to make room for some more Made in China non-food junk like memory foam house slippers for toddlers, etc. Pet-peeve with Aldi--stick to food, damnit!

Anyway, as I've said, pintos are my favorite but I like to try the 'exotics'. We eat a lot of black beans, too, but generally from the can as an ingredient rather than as a meal of beans. I like 'Moors & Christians' (totally non-PC name for a recipe) and love New Orleans style red beans & rice but I'm the only one in the household that does. DSI loves beans & rice, too, but his preference is Tex-Mex style pintos & rice. He has his own home so he just passes thru on an irregular basis (to raid the refrigerator but I love him anyway!)

cilantro, we have similar weather close to the Lake and it gets drier inland, but the bulk of the beans are grown over in the "Thumb", which is by Lake Erie. I also get some of those sprouting beans inside the pods, if the weather is right. As for air conditioning, well, this is the first house I've ever lived in that has had air conditioning, we just don't usually need it. We've lived here 3 years and have geothermal heating and cooling, so now we have air conditioning.

What I was really thinking, though, was that since Michigan grows so many beans it should be easier to just ship them next door, instead of to Mexico, who buys the bulk of the beans we grow. Maybe Wisconsin wouldn't buy enough to make it as profitable?

Annie

well, I do own a PC, but it hasn't been out of the cupboard in several years. I cook ribs in it before putting them on the grill. I might have made a roast in it...... Guess I need to start looking at recipes. Any good, non spicy, no garlic recipes for beans? Please? Or for the PC, even.

Tami, my favorite way to cook pintos is dried beans, ham or ham hock or ham bone/ hide, OR bacon ends & pieces, water, chopped celery, chopped onions into the cooker, pressure it up, set timer for 26-30 minutes, let pressure drop naturally, add some chopped garlic & simmer a bit. I always add some form of heat like jalapenos or serranos but you'll want to omit that.

There are a few sites on-line devoted to pressure cooking. Lots of info out there. Just so you know, the timing is different for almost every different kind of bean. The white beans cook faster; black-eyed peas cook so fast that I don't bother with the PC for them. And the older the beans, the longer it takes to cook them but you probably already know that. If I'm unsure of the timing, I'll cook for less time, cool the cooker under the faucet and check progress. If more cooking time is needed, the cooker pressures up a lot faster than it does from a cold start.

Annie, we have a Del Monte cannery in town. Lots & lots of green beans go thru there. Potatoes, too. And beets. I don't know what all else. Central Wisconsin has a lot of potato growers; Wisconsin does grow some wonderful tasting potatoes. A lot of corn is grown around here, too.

I think most, if not all of WI was glaciated; the soil is sandy and the top soil is quite thin. The thin layer of top soil was a shock to me when I first moved here...coming from Oklahoma where the top soil is measured in feet vs being measured in inches here! The area around me was an ancient lake bed; I suppose that was as/ after the glaciers melted but I've forgotten most of the not-much that I knew about WI geology (if that's even the correct term.)

Thank you!

Soak for a long time if they are old. I do mine with one garlic clove and a bay leaf and a few clove buds and some onion. Add salt later. Can add flavorings later, after they are cooked through. No acid while cooking. I like mildly chili tasting beans so would perhaps add some chili powder (the kind that is a mix of oregano, cumin and ancho chili) and some diced tomatoes and a bit of brown sugar after cooked. I use those kinds of beans for bean dip, refritoes or beans and rice.

Edited to add that I also cook my beans in broth, so I would ad some veggie bouillon, (Better than Bouillon kind) but they are probably great with other broths too, or some ham or other type of pork thrown in for flavor.

Tami, I make a "mess of beans" for Elery regularly, he loves any kind of bean I can give him, and I use the crockpot. I dump in a pound or so of beans, add a ham bone if I have one, or some ham scraps or bacon ends if I have those, or no meat at all if I don't have any. A smoked turkey leg or pork hock works really well too. Chop one onion, a carrot or two, a couple of stalks of celery. Toss it into the crockpot with the beans, add a couple of quarts of water. Salt and pepper to taste, usually after it all cooks. I cook it on high for 8 hours or on low for 10-12, but I have an old crockpot, a newer one might cook faster. Anyway, just start it and walk away, and when the beans are tender, it's done. Sometimes I add a bay leaf, but usually not because I don't think about it. I seldom add garlic and I know you're allergic to that, so just skip it, it's fine. I like the beans to be pretty thick, if you want more like soup, use more liquid. If they're thick, though, I can mash them up with some seasonings and make bean dip with the leftovers.

If you want something different, I also like this Bean, Sausage and Kale soup:

https://sharedappetite.com/recipes/rustic-tuscan-style-sausage-white-bean-and-kale-soup/

cilantro, I know Wisconsin grows a lot of things, and has a thriving dairy industry, so maybe there's not enough room for beans. I still can't figure out why Michigan doesn't send beans there, though, it's a short trip and you'd think that the shorter the shipping the better, both in time and fuel.

Annie

Thanks, Annie!

I don't have a recipe--I just cook them. First, I cook the beans with just water. No soaking. Into the slow cook (heavy pot in oven on low or official slow cooker) go the beans, diced & seared meat (optional), tomato paste, wine or beer (or stock or water), sautéed onions, carrots, peppers, celery, and/or whatever vegetable stops long enough to be chopped, and whatever herbs, spices and flavorings I feel like. Recently, I put them up before breakfast, before my mind was fully engaged, and used Thai peanut sauce and salsa de nopales (chilis and cactus) rather than spices and herbs, and it came out awesome! Didn't even taste weird. Don't be scared of beans. You're bigger than they are! I really do think they come out best if at least partially cooked first, however.