Bean Soup

I’ve been in a sustainable mood lately, not wanting to waste anything- and that would include food and money.  I’ve also had a little free time on my hands the past few days, so I thought I would finally tackle that big, old, ugly bag of assorted dried beans that have been in the back of my cupboard for two apartments now.  Hey, I thought, I can save a little money on my groceries by using things I already have, and I can try out a new recipe!

If only I had known…

 Beans- full of FIBER, according to the packaging

The Recipe

16 Bean Soup, from…me (I was going for creative, you see)

Apprehension Meter

Even though bean soup, to most cooks, is probably child’s play, I was pretty apprehensive about this one.  I never liked those beans from the start, sitting there, getting all dusty in the back of my cupboard.  They took up precious space, but I couldn’t bare to throw them away because there wasn’t anything wrong with them.

One thing in particular that I was a little wary of was having to soak the beans overnight before cooking them.  Having never cooked with dried beans before, I trusted the instructions on the bag, but was still a little dubious.

On top of using these strange dried beans, I was going to have to figure out how to make this soup taste good, all on my own.  Talk about pressure.

Here’s How It Really Went

You’d better sit down for this one.

It all started innocently enough.  I filled a bowl with 8 cups of cold water, and poured the beans into the bowl.  They instantly became more appealing once out of the old, dusty plastic bag that housed them for the past two years.  They looked like little beads at the bottom of a fish bowl, most sinking to the bottom but some floating on the top.

Goodnight, little guys

Satisfied with my progress thus far, I put them aside and went to bed.

I awoke the next morning later than planned, so they had soaked for about 9 ½ hours, instead of the recommended 6-8.  I examined them, and they looked fine.  They had almost doubled in size, which I was expecting.  I drained the beans, and put them back into the bowl, covered them with tin foil, and headed to the gym. 

Well, the gym led to a trip to Caribou Coffee, which led to a trip to The Gap, whereupon I received a phone call from a friend who was in the neighborhood, whom I met for another coffee at Caribou, where we heard about a Halloween parade that was taking place up the street in approximately one hour, which we had to attend, which, in short, turned out to be mostly men dressed as various versions of Lady Gaga, strutting down Halsted (unfortunately I didn’t see anyone wearing my favorite most ridiculous Lady Gaga outfit).

Anyway.  By the time I got home, it was nearly 7:30pm.  I had been planning on making chili for dinner (the bean soup was going to be an afternoon project), and I had a pound of hamburger thawed and ready to go that I couldn’t let wait another day.  So, I set the beans aside again, with the intention of making my delicious soup the next evening.

Well. 

I learned something new.

When you cover damp beans and let them sit out for about 30 hours, guess what happens.

They begin to sprout. 

I didn’t bother to do any research on this phenomenon, and assumed that it’s not wise (or tasty) to eat sprouted beans.  I could be wrong, maybe they were fine, but there’s something creepy about the way the little white sprout twisted crookedly out of the bean, like some kind of antennae.

I discovered this after work the following day, when I eagerly checked on them, ready to dump them into a pot of vegetable stock to begin the cooking process. 

Disgusted but determined to succeed, I began going through the beans and picking out the sprouted ones by hand.  Not all of them had sprouted, you see, just certain varieties.  And they didn’t smell good.  I'd pick out the bad ones, toss them on the foil, and toss the good ones into the soup pot.  The work was tedious and unrewarding, and upon the discovery of a slimey substance at the bottom of the bowl, I called it quits.

6 cups of vegetable stock and a bag of beans down the drain (figuratively speaking).  Two cans of diced tomatoes and an onion with nowhere to go.  Three potential meals, gone.  Tragic.

So, I ate one of these, instead.