Please help me find a way to like beans and pulses!

LilacLillie

Over the years I have used various beans and pulses. I'd love to use them more often, even the overnight soak doesn't put me off.
Every recipe I have used ( except one, for lentils), has always been complicated.
Anyone have any tips/recipes for simple dishes of them? I'd love to give them a go and want to cut down on meat for obvious reasons.
LL

Lillibet_2

I sometimes use brown lentils in place of meat in lasagne, you can buy the pre-soak ones or tinned, both work fine. I follow my usual recipe (onion & garlic fried plus whatever veg I have on hand with a spash of stock & wine, loads of lasagne sheets & either cheese sauce or pureed sweetcorn plus loads of cheese on top) & just add the lentils to the veg mix prior to assembling.

Cheap baked beans with the sacue washed off work well in place of chick peas in most recipes & I add kidney beans to pratically anything.

HTH?

misty

Spicy bean chilli - this is yum and quick,cheap and easy

green/red/yellow pepper
onion
tins of mixed beans or I use
can of cannellini beans
can lima beans
can of kidney beans
garlic too taste - i use a good few cloves
chilli peppers with or without seeds or powdered chilli
tomato puree
red wine (glass or so)
tinned plum tomatoes or fresh plum tomatos and some stock
herbs whatever you like - I use cumin and oregano
mushrooms

fry in a bit of olive oil the peppers,mushrooms,onion and garlic
add the tomatos and wine
add the different beans after they been rinsed
mix about and leave to simmer for the flavours to infuse
serve with either on its own or with rice

LilacLillie

Thanks for both of the above. I've never thought of pureed sweetcorn as a sauce and think that might be a good one. Also the chilli sounds quite easy as well. I have just spent almost 5 hrs cooking a beef stew (in a pressure cooker!!!!), and a Sainsburys recipe out of last months mag, chickpea & sweet potao stew. Why it took so long .............................I have no idea!
I even used tinned chickpeas. The mess will take the rest of the day to clear up and my son just told me (after seeing it), that he is having a cheese sandwich tonight
Does anyone remember that old 70's series "Butterfly", with Wendy Craig?????
Well thats how I always feel. I do the mother earth thingy, cook for almost all day, to produce what can only be loosly described as food, and if its eaten at all, takes about 10mins!
The only thing I can make is Yorkshire puddings......................now can I put pureed sweetcorn and tinned beans in those I wonder?????
LL

GemmaJ_2

Check out Gillian Mckeith's new cook book. There are some good recipes in there for beans and pulses.

tightgit_2

I've got a book that I have been usuing for about twenty years called 'The Bean Book' by Rose Elliot. It is still for sale at Amazon. It has nothing but bean recipes, most of which are very easy. It is a paperback and has approx. 250 pages of recipes.

LilacLillie

I ordered the Gillian McKeith book the other day from BOL, half shop price I might add!
I was very dissapointed in the "You are what you eat" one, as it didn't have many of the recipes that she used to mention on her show. I hope this new one is better.
I think a trip to the Library may be in order here............
LL

Galtizz

LOADS of recipes HERE, just pick the sort of bean you've got. It is a bit american though if you pick the wrong recipe

I had a lovely mixed bean enchillada at a meal out recently, but I don't know how to make it. I guess you could use Misty's chilli recipe and serve it in tortillas with some sour cream, salsa and/ or pea guacamole (I have a recipe for this somewhere, I'll look it out)

Yoga_Girl

Beans are great to add to a salad to "bulk" it up a bit, I love chick-peas or kidney beans added to a salad.

Lentil Soup

Fry a finely diced onion and garlic (optional)
Add a cupful of dried red lentils and fry for a minute.
Add 3 - 4 cupfuls of veg stock, bring to boil and simmer for 20 minutes or until lentils are soft. Mix with wooden spoon or put it liquidiser for a smoother finish.
Add seasoning to taste and serve with a squeeze of lemon if desired.

You can also add diced potato to this dish as well.


Lentil Bolognaise

Similar to the above recipe.

Fry onion and garlic, a diced celery stick and small diced carrot, cook til soft then add dried red lentils and a bay leaf and cook for a minute.
Add veg stock (not as much as you need for the soup, enough to cover and a little bit more)
Cook for 20 minutes then add tin chopped tomatoes.
Cook til its reduced down to a thick sauce.

Variations - add chopped sun-dried tomatoes, herbs as prefered, red wine, or anything else that you think will go.

Serve with pasta.


Chickpea Rigatoni

Fry chopped onion and garlic.
Add tin of chick-peas (or previously soaked and cooked dried chickpeas).
In a liquidiser blitz another tin of chick-peas with some veg stock (about half a pint). Add this puree to the saucepan.
Add a tin of chopped tomatoes and some fresh rosemary, bring to the boil and simmer til the sauce has reduced to a nice rich sauce.
Season to taste.
Serve with pasta.


Chick-peas can also be roasted in the oven with any spices/seasonings you like, as a snack, or use to fill a pitta bread.

Another pitta bread filling is to mash up some kidney beans, add toasted cumin seeds, serve.

You can make your own re-fried beans (mexican style) by mashing pinto beans, mix with fried onion and cumin powder, add a little bit of liquid if too dry, serve in pittas or tortilla wraps.

Yoga_Girl

Oh thought of another one!

Super Italian White Bean and Tomato Sauce

Take 3 - 4 garlic gloves, cut into quaters, add to hot extra virgin olive oil. Under low heat gently fry the garlic.
Take handful of fresh sage leaves, chop and add to garlic.
Add 2 tins of chopped tomatoes.
Bring to the boil and simmer til sauce starts to reduce.
Add tin of cannellini or butter beans.
Warm through, season to taste.

Serve with pasta.

Garnish with chopped sage leaves that have been gently fried. (optional)



Phew I'm getting peckish now!

ejsmith

Every time I go shopping (if picking up something, seeing the price and shrieking "I'm not paying that!" counts as 'shopping') I stand and look at beans and pulses. I know that they're incredibly good for you and pretty cheap but I just can't get inspired. I don't even like baked beans, although sometimes they and/or kidney beans make it to a mince dish. I don't like chilli or any of the broadly 'Indian' herbs and spices (coriender, turmeric etc) but everything else is fine. The only bean dish I've really raved about was a garlic bean one demonstrated when I won a comp for a cooking day with Ed Baines. However, by the time pounds of butter and litres of cream had been added it was neither healthy nor cheap!

So has anyone any ideas?

Elizabeth