We're doing another TESR Test Kitchen that doesn't focus on sweet.
A bag of dried cranberry beans attracted some attention this past week. They were 99 cents for the bag. After soaking and rinsing and then cooking, they produced a huge pot of beans. What are cranberry beans? WIKIPEDIA offers:
The borlotti bean is a variety of common bean (Phaseolus vulgaris) first bred in Colombia as the cargamanto.[1] It is also known as the cranberry bean, Roman bean, romano bean (not to be confused with the Italian flat bean, a green bean also called "romano bean"), saluggia bean, gadhra bean or rosecoco bean.[2] The bean is a medium to large tan or hazelnut-colored bean splashed or streaked with red, magenta or black.
Saluggia beans are named after Saluggia in northern Italy, where they have been grown since the early 1900s.[3]
Characteristics[edit]
The borlotti bean is a variety of the cranberry bean bred in Italy to have a thicker skin. It is used in Italian, Portuguese (Catarino bean), Turkish, and Greek cuisine.
The cranberry bean looks similar to the pinto bean, but cranberry beans are larger and have big maroon specks on a creamy white background, more like Great Northern beans. After cooking, however, the specks vanish and the beans take on a more even, darker color.
Why cranberry beans? They're different. We also love to cook dried lentils, black eye peas, garbanzo beans, lima beans, navy beans, etc.
If you're trying to save money, we should also tell you that dried beans are inexpensive -- very cheap, especially when you consider how much a pack produces after soaking, rinsing and cooking.
'B-b-b-but I don't have the time for soaking and rinsing?' Of course you do. Put them in a pan filled with water overnight or do it when you get up in the morning before you start your day. Let them soak for eight hours. Then rinse and cook. (Most of the dried beans can be quick soaked. That usually involves boiling them for a few minutes and then soaking for up to two hours. We don't usually quick soak, but you can if you'd like.)
In Frances Moore Lappe's groundbreaking classic DIET FOR A SMALL PLANET, she notes that we are eating far less fiber than we used to. Less fiber means more illnesses and weight gain. One of the reasons for less fiber in the American diet: "The amount of dried beans in our diet has dropped by a third since its peak in the 1930s."
Cranberry beans can be used in chili and pasta fagioli, among other dishes. We just like to eat them plain. Now if we're cooking some dried lentils, after we've soaked and rinsed the beans, we like to cook them in the pot with a half an onion sliced, half of a large jalapeno pepper sliced and 2 cloves of garlic sliced.