"if you'd like to share your winning beans and greens recipe, that would be nice, too."

"I second pllog in asking if you want to share your beans and greens recipe that you've come up with'

I'm happy to share, but it's so easy and simple I'm not sure it deserves the title of 'recipe'. So here's what I do:

I start with about a half pound of bulk mild Italian sausage in a frying pan. Sometimes I add about half of an onion, chopped, sometimes not. Break the sausage apart as it cooks. When it is no longer showing any pink and the onion (if using) is transparent, add a package of frozen chopped kale and just enough water (or broth if you have it) to keep it from browning. Stir to make sure the meat and kale is all welll mixed. Cover ahd cook over low heat until kale is almost tender. Add a can of beans of your choice, stir, and continue to cook until kale has reached desired tenderness. That's it.

Kale and butter beans are my personal favorites to use, but it's also good with collards, mixed greens or even turnip greens, although I prefer a small amount of bacon in lieu of the Italian sausage with the turnip greens. I've also used almost every kind of canned dried beans available around here, they're all good.

Since I've switched to using 'home cooked' dried beans, I add probably at least half again as many beans as what a can is. And I cook them with no seasoning so it doesn't compete with the flavors of the sausage and greens.

If anyone makes this, or anything similar, I'd love your thoughts.

Rusty

Thanks for sharing that, Rusty. There was a white bean and kale soup in the NYT a few years ago that got some traction by recipe bloggers who put their spin on it. It was very much like yours, but with various additions like grated parm/rosemary/splash of lemon, etc. When I make it, I add sausage, too, for more protein. I do like some rosemary, and maybe some parm. I only use lemon if I go meatless.

No beans, but I guess you could add them.

https://www.simplyrecipes.com/recipes/green_gumbo/

Gooster, Ooh, tarbais beans, I have some of those that need using (mine are Rancho Gordo brand again, they literally label them 'cassoulet bean' - they're on the larger side) - cassoulet is something we used to do after Christmas back when we cooked goose dinners... now I've got an excuse to buy a duck ! Report back on how the baking soda works out, Kenji Lopez-Alt talked about that in one of his podcasts but I forgot the details ... I like him better on his podcast than his writing, except for his 'wok-hei' essay in the NYT that was a great read. Interesting the serious eats tests were inconclusive - I'll have to look that up

Rusty, thanks for the method about greens and beans, I love the ease of using frozen kale (too many times I have high aspirations but let the fresh greens wilt) and with now you using dried beans have you branched out on varieties ? I had to look up to remember that butter beans are lima beans. Sausage kale and beans, yummm ! and sometimes onions

Feathers, thanks for the ideas on variations, I especially like the lemon idea I often forget to use my lemons and I really love them.

A little on the boring side but one of my favorite beans is the small white navy beans - they cook up nicely and fast -I use carrots, celery onion, sauteed in butter with lots and lots of herbs like thyme, rosemary, finish with cream and a bread crumb parmesan topping and bake at the end (it's a riff on a Greens recipe ) . I could see adding greens to that mix, that would make it a complete meal in one.

Feathers, that soup sounds interesting. I like soup and eat it a lot all year long. Would you share that recipe?

I first heard of

beans & Greens a couple of years ago and looked up a couple of recipes. Wasn't oimpressed at all. In fact, I thought it sounded like a terrible idea. But now a local grocery store has a deli soup called "Zuppa Toscana" and I love it. That's where I got the idea of Italian Sausage with kale, two if my favorite foods complimenting each other without a lot of 'outside interference'. The beans make it a happy healthy threesome.

I think a full pound of the sausage with a package of kale would be even better, but I have to keep the sodium down, which is why I now cook dried beans, I use no salt in them.

The canned butter beans I like so much are actually lima beans, so my next order will include them. I already have the Christmas Limas' on my want list. And maybe some of the cassoulets that were mentioned above. But what else could I do with them? I'm not very apt to be getting a goose or a duck.

Rusty

Rusty, I don’t see the NYT recipe anymore (its cooking search engine is wonky ime) but here’s one that is close:

https://thefirstmess.com/2018/01/03/creamy-white-bean-soup-vegan-recipe/

If I add sausage, I don’t add the lemon. And I use chicken broth. Any white bean will work.

Feathers, that looks so good ! I made a version of my white beans (I had Great Northern - they cooked up nicely within an hour after the boil and soak for an hour method - but also like plain old navy) I used so many carrots, onions and celery that a sweet flavor came through too much and I forgot about the lemon again ! I'll squeeze some into my leftovers.... mine is more of a side dish than soup and my green that I added was escarole, my favorite, because that's what I had in the frig.

Rusty, enjoy your lima bean order ! I just put in my seed order and I'm going to try favas again, another large bean but can be eaten raw. I dream of a beautiful summer salad from the garden, but that's months away. Maybe for a special occasion try a duck, it's such a fabulous combo with the white beans and sausage ala cassoulet.

There's a soup for Asturias Spain that I saw Jose Sndres prepare on his PBS special which looked fantastic ! I haven't found the right ingredients for it but it uses a special kind of bean grown in Asturia (a type of fava bean?) Anyway, it's a fun watch. Oops, that wasn't the video I meant but I'll leave it up anyway..... the one I was thinking of is on HBO Max, episode 5 from 2022 .

Adding a comment, I guess fava beans can be dangerous too, so do some research - I've eaten them raw based on recipes but take care I guess...

I'm sorry, I'm researching the asturian bean more now - it is not a Fava bean, sorry about that ... all I know now is it's hard to find that exact variety using the www - let me know if anybody finds it either to grow or purchase dried . Jose says the skin is almost non-existent !

I am a big fan of Rancho Gordo Beans! the Ayacote Morado beans are good. other big favorites include Royal Corona, Christmas Lima, and Scarlet Runner.

So I just had this article pop up in my feed - can you guess which method for preparing and cooking beans was determined to be the best?

https://www.foodandwine.com/best-way-to-cook-dried-beans-11920208

Fun, haven't read yet so I'll guess... overnight soak (now off to find out how wrong I am :))

I am sorry but that article is not really correct about the fastest cook time using Instant Pot.

Instant Pot pressure at only 10.2 to 11.6 psi, which means 239F to 243F.

Instant Pot MAX pressure at 15 PSI, which means it cooks at 250F.

I would say a Cuckoo pressure cooker which cooks at 26 PSI is the fastest, at temperature 268F.

Note: the PSI numbers above are gauge numbers inside a pressure cooker.

dcarch

So, I get pressure cooking for time, but is it the best choice?

> So I just had this article pop up in my feed - can you guess which method for preparing and > cooking beans was determined to be the best?

I guessed correctly, but they missed the important "follow-up" question to the exercise, which is if there was a difference in how "productive" or "noisy" were the resulting beans.

After chatting with multiple other bean cookers in my area, I've determined there is a common theme (cutting across varieties and sources of means" of tough, long cooking beans. I think it may be the hard water, so I will try the baking soda trick the next time.

I prefer the no soak/stove top method.

To be fair, I think the windy-ness of legumes often can depend on how much sugar is consumed with them...

Feathers, thank you for posting the link to that soup recipe, it looks delicious.

Rusty

The "best" way to cook beans depends on how you like your beans, what your circumstances are and how much time you have. It's all subjective and not objective, so my "best" way might not be yours.

Right now I have dried split peas in the crock pot with onions, carrots, celery and a smoked ham hock. Yeah, I know, the salt, LOL. I didn't soak them and they are cooking on "high", which is a slight boil in my cheap crockpot. It usually takes about 6 hours, so that will be supper.

Annie

FWIW, split peas or split lentils - and even black eyed peas, for that matter - all cook up soft in around 20 minutes or so without pre-soaking.

And for those who didn't read the link I shared - it was overnight soaking that had the most preferred results.

Annie, that sounds delicious ! I would think the long slow simmer allows the hamhock to be thoroughly infused and the peas become a beautiful velvety puree ? I like your way of saying personal preferences, type of beans, etc mean 'best' is a misnomer at best :))

Carol, I read and enjoyed the article you linked and saw that the overnight soak method was 10/10 for the cannellini beans - I cooked great northern beans the other night using the boil and soak for an hour method which led to inconsistent results just as they said, a few beans remained crunchy, some perfect, and some overly soft. they were still delicious though ! My carrots remained a bit al dente too, so maybe I'm an impatient cook, or get started too late.

Elmer, interesting thoughts, thank you. We can agree to disagree about a long slow simmer diminishing flavor, that just doesn't sound right. Anyway, my feeling is that there's no such thing as 'best' just as Annie said, it's about situations and what works. That's why I appreciate everybody's different experiences :)) Earlier you pointed out a Kenji recipe for lentils with gremolata, I've been craving gremolata ever since, it's soooo good - I must get to it this week. Have you made that one yet ?

Thanks everybody, I've learned a lot, like: I'll try adding salt up front to soak; next time I do chickpeas I'll add baking soda; I'll pay more attention to freshness and maybe start dating beans if I put them into jars; I'll soak overnight if I'm organized enough but the boil and soak for an hour still works; I've got several new varieties of beans I'm trying and I'm on the waitlist for the next harvest of Ayocote Morado from Rancho Gordo; lots of methods work and none is 'best' .

if anybody finds out how to buy Asturiana fabada let me know, the ones I've found are like $40 a pound plus shipping, so that's not happening :)) Maybe someday I'll get to Spain

I've looked around. They do go for up to $10 less, but that's before comparing the shipping. Common substitutes are cannellini beans and royal coronas.

i agree with you on what works! But also on the slow simmer. It's just that if you're doing a slow simmer in water, the flavor transfers from the meat and vegetables to the water and whatever else is in it. It could be each other, or it could be the beans. This is the basis of making stock--simmer the heck out of the ingredients and you have empty texture left, which has no value except as additions to the compost, and even for that, they mostly just donate fiber and aren't the best. Generally, for a slow simmered soup, one puts in some flavoring type meat either as stock or bones to flavor the soup, along with the vegetables to be cooked down, then add in meat pieces that are meant to be eaten in the soup at the last hour or so. I don't care for the quick cooked soups. They're more like wet food than a proper soup where all the flavors come to play. Even after a goodly simmer, they often need to cool down and marry before the get to their full selves. The RG Christmas lima and cabbage soup just got better and better in the fridge--mark it with a B!

I haven't tried it, I'd just coincidentally come upon it. Maybe it was a video, I get notices of new ones.

Speaking of modern Kenji soups, here's one you might like (and I will too):

Portuguese Potato and Kale Soup with Sausage. He says it's 45 minutes start to finish because he does some of the prep work after the cooking starts but that includes cooking time. Maybe it is for him with his skills, for me it would maybe be another 10 minutes added to the 10 minutes he includes for prep time. I like to have everything mise en place before I start cooking.

You'll note the soup simmers for about 30 minutes and the sausage is tossed in near the end. No long simmering. I've seen that in modern soup recipes from many sources, which was what triggered my comment to you.

Caldo Verde - Kenji's Portuguese potato and kale soup with sausage

Thanks pllog ! Honestly I don't know if I've fully understood you, but thanks! I love a long slow simmer for some soups, like fresh tomatoes, onions, whole garlic, simmered for hours until it's a syrupy paste, then through the chinois , then into the pot add stock, a little cream, voila - that's my tomato soup recipe ... if I have a red bell pepper, fennel, etc, they can go in too ! Or, skip the soup treatment and put in frozen green beans and simmer and simmer as a lovely side dish everybody loves it. The flavor doesn't disappear from a long simmer , just gets distributed around. But making stock with water, the meat and veg lose their flavor and are discarded... I guess that's what Elmer was saying too, but hamhocks and split peas seem like a transfer of flavor that won't dissipate... maybe I'm overthinking this... Southern cooking is something I have dabbled in, but am no good at. I have the Edna Lewis cookbook based on learning about her from 'Splendid Table' npr show.

Elmer, my friend makes an amazing Caldo Verde over the years, we had it at his house in January, outstanding ! Thank you for the recipe - I don't know his recipe, asking him now... keep in mind with Kenji's current recipes, he has little kids and looks for every shortcut these days - I know this from his podcast :)) I've grown to like him after feeling he was a bit pedantic at first. He has done well carving a food career for himself. I do enjoy his NYT essays.

Thank you so much for sharing that, Annie, it makes me want to get out of my house and get moving :) With a slow-simmering pot of something waiting for me - thinking ahead is an admirable skill I wish I was better at

Also FWIW, I don't soak beans overnight, I sort ,rinse, and soak them early in the day, and after several hours - or by the end of the day - they're ready to cook.

Kenji is now divorced. His videos over the last few years moved from a house (Seattle) to a houseboat (one of the lakes in the Seattle area) and now appear to be shot in the second of two apartments. I suspect he has joint custody of his kids (refers to them often) and that he does his work on days he doesn't have them.

Calling him pedantic saying he's pedantic is fair but that's to be expected because his own orientation (and his years learning the Cooks Illustrated MO) is all about experimenting in numerous iterations to fine tune ingredients, temperatures, handling, etc. to attain the outcomes he wants. His blockbuster "recipe" book is called "The Food Lab - Better Home Cooking Through Science". For each recipe, he exhaustively explores what happens and why before putting his pencil down. The book explains what was done and what resulted.

" I never did understand the reasoning behind the assertion that there is only one "right way" to make or eat something. "

There isn't but if you simmer or boil a piece of meat in water for very long, I've found the flavor disperses and neither the meat pieces nor the liquid have benefitted much. I also never use a crock pot. It all depends on what you want to do and how you want it to come out.

Ham hocks are soft enough to cut after less than an hour of simmering. Pick a day you're not pruning trees or fixing fences and try a shorter process.

Elmer, do you want to rethink that rude comment ? it's okay if you want to edit and remove the rudeness - that's kind of out of line, no?

About Kenji, he's standing on the shoulders of giants, like Harold McGee

I'm sorry to hear his family broke up :(

Regarding cassoulet, the reason , years ago, I disliked Kenji (I like him fine now) is because he has a cassoulet recipe touting chicken thighs instead of duck ... my husband was smitten and he wanted to do Kenji's recipe and I wanted our classic Julia Child with duck. Oh well, that's ancient history.

I hadn't previously heard of McGee. I note he went to Caltech, started in science, finished in humanities. Kenji has two degrees from MIT. Thanks, I'll look into what he's done.

There's little in any field that's ever truly new and revolutionary. The past always motivates and informs the present. It isn't a lack of originality, it's simply how things evolve over time. The places formerly held by some in years past are taken up by fresh newcomers to make their own contributions.

Cassoulet with chicken instead of duck sounds like an easy way to make a delicious dish more approachable for the general public. Julie Child and her recipes were/are brilliant and adhere closely to tradition. Most are impractical to make, or at least are not as approachable as modernized and simplified versions of same.

Oh, I'm glad to turn you on to Harold McGee. Now I must pull his book down and review his info about beans :)) I first heard of him through his interviews with Terry Gross on Fresh Air - well worth a listen! He comes across kindly and very knowledgeable. Let me know if you'd like me to dig up a link for you :) We can all learn from each other through curiosity, interest, and understanding, so go ahead and ask questions ! And show kindness along with sharing your experiences.

I don't mind Kenji wanting to produce an essay arguing for chicken thighs in cassoulet, it's just that I didn't want them that one year, haha ! He tends to be unnecessarily verbose, imo, but as I said I've grown to appreciate him. I admire that he went to MIT, biology major I heard him say in an interview, but didn't know he had 2 degrees! I'm very happy that he found a calling in food science and don't mean to downplay his contributions.

Julia Child is actually very approachable, have you watched her old shows on tv ? Or followed her recipes? (we have a well-used copy Mastering the Art of French cooking, 1965). She's famously down to earth and quintessentially instrumental in making French cooking approachable to the US back in the day. Where do you get that she's impractical? Can you give an example? Just because she doesn't 'dumb down' the recipes? Modernization is a valid point, due to ingredients becoming more available and healthy diet concerns changing, which she frequently acknowledges through the years on her TV shows - in other words, she kept up! Her intellect, kindness and love of life is inspirational and will never be dated, imo. Here's her intro dedication in that book:

Anyway, thanks again to everybody and sorry if I've gotten off track... time to put my beans on to soak !

I always found recipes in Mastering to involve more time and work than I was willing to perform. I gave it away many years ago. With the end result, even if approximate, of more interest to me than adherence to a traditional processes, I've always appreciated recipes with more streamlined and quicker approaches. Some of Kenji's recipes are a bit too much for me. A good example of this is his All American Beef Stew (On Serious Eats). The recipe, inclusive of his prescribed "umami bomb", is teriffic. But too long. When I make it, I review the steps and shorten or cut out ones I think aren't essential. His instructions envision more than one hour's work of active time. Too much for me but it can be done with less.

I've mentioned before, I can't stomach Terry Gross. Not even for a few minutes. I think she's far too immodest and full of herself to be a good interviewer. I'll look for content with Mr McGee that involves others. Thanks for the offer though, I know many like her. Why is beyond me but fine.

I finally got a chance to try Laceyveil's bean soup, but turns out there were no cannelini beans. So, I set some mayacoba beans to soak while I did errands. I don't know how old they are, but when I got home they didn't seem to have taken in any water, and by evening I'd forgotten them. After about 24 hrs. soaking, they had taken in all the water, but not to the point of feeling dry, so I cooked them with a carrot, a shallot, garlic slivers and ginger, but pulled the veg out before putting them in the soup. I under cooked them on purpose because they were going to be boiled in soup, but I should have cooked them a little more. Soup time! I wanted to try it because it has a goodly amount of pickled peppers plus brine. It's easy enough, but I had to throw out five cans of tomatos which had been distended while I was injured and not cooking. I ended up with Cento (not the true San Marzanos), which I ordinarily wouldn't consign to soup. The recipe didn't say, so I cut the tops off the pepperoncini, cut rings and removed most of the seeds. The one and only jar of banana peppers were crinkle ribbons.

The recipe is easy past the mis en places. I used a combo of fresh chard and fresh baby spinach, not having any frozen. I wilted them somewhat in the MW before adding. The beans were still fairly firm after boiling and simmering, and here I was so worried they'd go mushy! After a night in the fridge (where I think they sucked up broth) and a zap with my favorite spicy addition to tomato soup, they're about perfect texture. And very satisfying. Though occasional bites still taste pickly.

Pllog, that looks so good! I went back through the thread and couldn't find laceyveil's recipe, I'll try again... the thread gets sort of separated and some of the posts are

hidden in a weird way, I've seen this for a couple of years and it's confusing to me, hmmm

Anyway, I remember laceyveil saying that tomato paste doesn't stop beans from getting tender like fresh tomatoes and that was interesting and I'll try that out.

Just to follow up on my friend's caldo verde, my friend's recipe is from CIA book of soups, 2001 - almost identical to kenji except for kenji does 2 types of potatoes and more fat (which is fine with me). My friend said his best version was one year when he smoked his own hamhock, he's pretty handy. Caldo Verde is traditional, but due to this thread being about beans, I could see creating a version of caldo verde with beans vs potatoes, which would be like Rusty's soup, sounds good to me !

I'm sorry, Lat62! The recipe is here: https://www.gardenweb.com/discussions/6548661/remember-my-question-about-a-substitute-for-peppadew-peppers#n=12

I stuck as close as I could to what Laceyvail did. I think I want to try it with the peppadew peppers as a contrast. :)

Thank you, I remember that now ! I actually bought seeds for pepperdews based on that conversation, and they are now sown in a flat in my indoor garden area, no germination yet, fingers crossed .

I use only great white northern beans (navy beans), rinsed and soaked over nite. Ham bone from Christmas spiral ham. Lipton onion soup envelope, a little molasses, onion, celery and beef bullion cubes. That's what we called bean soup. We ate with cornbread. I have never cared for pea soup, or pinto beans.

My daughter in Houston, served it to her true Texas friends. They liked it, but did not think it was a rival to a pot of pinto beans. Lol.

I think great northern beans are a little bigger than navy beans - I love navy beans too!

We normally had navy beans when I was a child, they were the beans that were cheap and readily available here, Grandma would make bean soup with rye bread, I don't know why that particular combination.

Because the internet listens to us, I got this article today from Food and Wine.

Do You Really Need to Soak Dried Beans?

Annie

I really like this article, it will inform my next bean cook :)) I want to go ahead and salt the beans, giving up / testing the idea that salt impedes tenderness... and the idea that a hard boil initially will destroy the lectins is interesting, versus having to pour the beautiful dark broth down the drain ! I do remember though, getting some digestive issues when I was too stubborn to soak.... hmmmmm

I've been leaning stuff by doing. Twice now I've set some hard beans to soak for a few hours annd had them actually soak more like 24 hrs. and soak up most of the water. The mayocobas, which I told you about up topic, were couple years dry in my pantry. I purposefully undercooked them a bit before they cooked more in the soup. They stayed a bit firm. Now it's some Blue Goose Peas, which are barley sized beans, new from Rancho Gordo, but very hard and dry. I never thought they'd soak so long. They grew quite a bit and got waterlogged, but I though I should cook them a little, anyway, because they're going in squash soup. I shorted the time a lot, but still managed to overcook them. They're also delicious. I'm chilling them in the fridge and will add them to the soup at the last minute. I don't know if it's meaningful, but neither the Christmas Limas or the Mayocobas seemed to be particularly "windy".

The other thing I've learned is how aromatics work in pre-cooking the beans. This started with the recommendation from Ranch Gordo. The Blue Goose had a carrot, a fennel with tops cleaned of some outer bits that were going bad, a thumb of ginger, peel and all, and a few cloves of garlic, cut large to expose the good stuff. The peas definitely picked up some flavor, but I don't know how much is surface cling vs. absorption, and if over cooking helped or hindered. I don't usually care for garlic and ginger together, but in the cooking water it works.

That's great, thanks pllog ! I have so many notes and will definitely be expanding my horizons .... your mayacobas stayed a bit firm but in a good way ? Blue Goose Peas sound very interesting ! It would be so fun to share some time in the kitchen with you, but this is the next best thing ! The idea of the aromatics is something I'll definitely be trying / getting on board with - I wonder if cooking beans and making vegetable stock are a marriage of sorts .

For me, I love beans but they don't love me has been my mantra - not regarding just windy but absolute doubled-over pain a few times (sorry for oversharing :))

I've yet to use my christmas limas, but we had a brisket feast 2 days ago and my good friend brought a very delicious multi-bean dish and we had fun thinking about what they all were - her son said 10-bean mix :)

In the course of the year I will be trying various new techniques and pay more attention than I have in the past.

Firm rather than creamy or squishy, but cooked through. Re the marriage with veg stock, I wouldn't. I've tried such things in the past, and they go muddy. But if you save trimmings for stock, you could use some well chosen to flavor the beans. Keep in mind that if you're not going to want them in your finished beans, do put them in a soup sock. The bean cooking water, post strainer, is, essentially, bean stock at this point, which is different from veg stock. The RG Christmas lima recipe actually calls for bean water. I also know from old that if they're windy beans, the bean stock will be moreso.

Thank-you for the kind words! For me, this is better than a kitchen hang, I better express things in writing, typos and all, than aloud, and I tend to get frazzled cooking with people in the kitchen, including the minions, exception being my mother of blessed memory. It's a treat that you stared this thread just as I was getting into bean soups! Pre-cooking the beans for soup is different, for me, than making a pot of beans as beans. I've been learning a lot. And also learning that a bowl of bean soup is very satisfying. But then again I've been on a soup kick for months...

The soup: an acorn squash, two small delicatas, an anaheim chile and a serrano, a yellow bell pepper, a thumb of ginger and a turmeric (both left cut big to pull out later), plus the blue goose peas cooked with whole fennel, carrot, ginger and garlic, including the fennel and carrot, and bean cooking water, plus some leftover packaged chicken broth. And salt, a bunch of a pepper blend that had gotten damp, a little pure red chile powder (just chile, not blend, for color), some meaningful shakes of powdered turmeric, and the fronds from about 8 stems of dill. Just kept adding stuff until it tasted good anc looked pretty. :)

Nicce ! I can see the lovely yellow-orange color in my mind's eye ! I think fennel is my favorite - enjoy ! I will be getting my hands on those blue goose peas !

We are on a trip tomorrow so using up broccoli and bok choy, aiming for something along these lines :

https://raodyrecipes.com/recipes/entrees/2019/06/16/baby-bok-choy-curry/

And apropos of the tamarind thread, I finally got ahold of a block, so that flavor is in with the curry along with coconut milk - my broth is a mix of all the bones from the freezer just using things up ! (Normally I keep the chicken bones separate but this is a mixed bone broth)

No beans, but now I've thought to put quick cooking red lentils in a small pot as a side instead of rice -, Masoor dal from rancho gordo acquired via my recent order : 20-30 minutes nominal cook time - hurry up, lentils it's dinner time ! (Full credit to dh for the legwork on this, but it was my idea)

Here's how it's coming along, pickled ginger and red fresnos will be on the side as garnish.

That looks lovely! And the red dal sounds perfect. My soup is actually a soft green. Before the spices it was sludge. The chile peppers were green, as well as the fennel tops, and the yellow squash flesh read out more brown. That's why I adjusted color as well as flavor. I was out of peppers and had to stop at the food service store yeasterday for the liners that fit my kitchen trash can, so I picked up some there, but they were very freshly very green. ;)

Have a great trip!

So, I made a brothy vegetable soup, and put in some Jacob's Cattle beans--neither new nor super old, which had be soaked, drained and refrigerated but not cooked. These went in the soup after I had built out the veg, added water and packaged broth, and was about to bring it all to a hard boil, and an hour's simmer. They're perfect! Though they probably benefitted from a couple days soak in the fridge, as all soup does. I don't like soup beans to be mushy. The beans are cooked through but kind of firm, so you can bite them, but the flesh inside is soft without being mushy.