Preparedness for when

2tonsils

I don't know if I mentioned this earlier, but someone mentioning beans reminded me. I had terrible trouble in the past getting dried beans and chickpeas to go soft...I could cook them for hours and it just didn't happen. I have since discovered that if I use bottled water they go lovely and soft! I now have loads of cooked black eyed beans in the freezer ready to go into soups and other dishes......and my OH actually likes them. At 95 cents a big pan full, so do I! I cooked them in the slow cooker to stop them burning on the bottom of the pan...great stuff!

pineapple

Do you soak them first 2T? I make my own humous and also use a lot of pulses and I find if I soak them overnight, they all cook fine. Maybe it's down to our different water. In fact my problem with black eyed beans is catching them at just the right time - mine seem to go from uncooked to mush in a nanosecond!
I don't know about the beans but some people advocate adding a bit of bicarbonate of soda to the chick peas while they are soaking to reduce cooking time.

[Deleted User]

I always add bicarb to the soaking water and find it softens the outside skin of the beans or chickpeas or even marrowfat peas. I cook pulses in the Pressure Cooker as it only takes 20 minutes or so and saves fuel. I do know bicarb slightly reduces the nutritive value of the beans though, Cheers Lyn xxx.

2tonsils

Yes I soaked them first overnight...the problem was with the water..we have very hard, mineral rich spring drinking water. Although its good to drink it isn't so good for cooking pulses and beans lol...they stayed rock hard before! I found they didn't overcook in the slow cooker. Now I have sussed out the water problem I will progress to butter beans which are my favourites. They are used in a recipe called Gigantes here and its lovely, a sort of tomato sauce with butter beans in it. The Greeks eat it by the bowl full. They also love lentils, chickpeas and all other beans and pulses.

2tonsils

Here is a good recipe for the Gigantes, if you don't like butter beans you could always use a different pulse or bean to make it.

http://www.bbcgoodfood.com/recipes/12229/gigantes-plaki

tina_malteser

Been to see Dr today....ive got high Blood Pressure (no blummin wonder) time for lifestyle change...beans and pulses and low salt
Tina x

pineapple

2tonsils wrote: »

Here is a good recipe for the Gigantes, if you don't like butter beans you could always use a different pulse or bean to make it.

http://www.bbcgoodfood.com/recipes/12229/gigantes-plaki

Ooh I'll try that thanks! I go through butter bean phases - just ready for another one now. They are so versatile - good in a hearty stew with a bit of white wine or sometimes I blend and add some milk/seasoning to make a soup :beer:

pineapple

tina_malteser wrote: »

Been to see Dr today....ive got high Blood Pressure (no blummin wonder) time for lifestyle change...beans and pulses and low salt
Tina x

Good luck with that one - I love my salt but oddly my BP and other checks were OK. I think it's like some people can spend their lives smoking and drinking with no ill effects. Hopefully I'm 'salt proof'. :eek:
So long as you can get away with lifestyle changes and avoid any meds. A much younger neighbour with very high blood pressure is on beta blockers and has been told she will be on drugs for life. Mind you - I don't think she's making much of an effort to change her lifestyle. Me I would be proving those doctors wrong.

modern_millie_2

2tonsils, I remember having that bean dish about 30 years ago on a Greek island - it was really yummy.

Trying to cook using as little power as possible, good results so far. Yesterday I cooked pasta by boiling up then leaving on the elec ring, switched off, for 10 - 15 mins - was fine. Same today with potatoes - 20 mins- also fine. Cooked mung beans by the same method after 1 hour soak in boiling water - no probs. Made base of veg cottage pie and put in hm haybox to cook - also fine. It's in the Remoska now to brown the topping, but could have been eaten as it was. Don't know why I haven't done this before!

Reading this thread has spurred me on - got to think of a new challenge now. Thanks everyone!

GreyQueen

MrsLurcherwalker wrote: »

I always add bicarb to the soaking water and find it softens the outside skin of the beans or chickpeas or even marrowfat peas. I cook pulses in the Pressure Cooker as it only takes 20 minutes or so and saves fuel. I do know bicarb slightly reduces the nutritive value of the beans though, Cheers Lyn xxx.

Could I pop in and ask how much bicarb to a bowl of soaking water?

Yup, I have concerns that we may end up with a version of the NHS where you pay more towards your cost price of your meds. My lifesaving meds used to cost the NHS about 40P for a prescription and I use 4-5 prescriptions a year. Then somebody bought up the license to produce them and then started charging about £44 for the same amount.:mad:

Because they can. Think about the consequences of paying market price when things like that happen. There is an alternate med which does the same thing and I've been tried on that and had very bad reactions. I dread the NHS turning around one day and saying you can't have your usual, you must have the alternate. And we don't give a toss about the severe insomnia you go through which sends you to the verge of a breakdown. Even my pharmacist remarks on the cost. They can't fulfil my prescription in a single day as they don't keep that much in stock..................:(

I detest being dependant on a manufactured product for my very survival but it's my reality and I have to get on with it. I'd die of my medical problems long before I could starve. But I'm a fighter and would raid every bliddy pharmacy in town and the factory where they make them before I went quietly into that good night.

Wellll, the wheel has broken off one of my underbed storage trollies, the one with the tinned tomatoes in. For relatively recent readers, I am slightly renowned on this forum for keeping canned goods under my bed. Chiefly but not exclusively tinned tomatoes. I guess the weight was too much for that Arg0s trolley. You were probably meant to keep shoes in them or summat.

Trolley is functional but listing to starboard and I may do something about it when I am of the mind. I need to re-catalogue my stores and have got a notebook all ready. It's good to know where your next meal is coming from. That's a rainy day job if ever there was one. It's all in date, I've checked.

Mar, I think in the olden days the Scots ate a lot of oat-based foodstuffs? And had kaleyards ('scuse my klatchian) behind the cottage for the greens? I know if you read oldy-styley books about medieval England there were lots of things like grain porridges esp barley and pease pottage. Lots of beans ekeing out a small amount of grub.

Dad's doing family history, been at it for years now and hasn't found one single rich person for me to inherit from. Got back to early 1600s and our folks then were living until their early eighties or even nineties which is about what we do now. Except we don't end our days in the workhouse.* Without any modern medicine or even proper sanitation. I come from toughies and I never forget it.

Can't recall who it was asking about light pans but you can get nesting sets of billy cans from camping and army surplus places. If you're going to be cooking on open fires, you'll need really sturdy stuff like cast iron. I'd like a tripod. An' a cauldron.

Pointy hat optional.:rotfl:

* Give 'em time. There's prolly a think tank on it right now. Barstewards.

Am cooking a vat of chili with some mince which probably isn't horsey but who can tell in these troubled times? There are FB pies out there dated until Jan 2015 which is probably longer than George Osborne's life expectancy. Negative interest my aspidistra..........!