Beans, Beans... the magical fruit!

Sorry for the title, no this isn't a post about bodily function although the throw back to the old rhyme is in play. I just couldn't think of another way to title this post about making my own black beans.

I use black beans in a lot of stuff. I had mentioned in an earlier post that my family loves Mexican food night all too often- so we use black beans in chile, nachos, tacos, and even as a great side dish in our bento style lunch boxes. Sometimes, a nice cup of hot black beans with some garlic salt and topped with scallions is a great little snack- and super healthy. Back a few years when I made the switch to eating organic and more healthy, I switched from eating bags of processed potato chips with my lunches to having sides of black beans and I realized how much more satisfying and tasty a treat they were in comparison.

Black beans ready to eat from the store come in cans which are recyclable- but again, I am trying to use less. And anyways, the labels on the cans are not recyclable because of the glue. SO I read up about how to process dry black beans.

The positive: Dry black beans are super oober cheap! If you go this route, and are used to buying a can of organic black beans for a couple bucks when on sale, then you will save about 50% of your cash ding this from scratch.

The negative: Processing your own blacks is A. Process. Essentially you have to pre soak the dry beans in a combination of lime juice and water for 24 hours first. Then, you drain and cook them in chicken stock, any additional spices and a little bit of salsa for a good 4 hours. Check out the detailes of the process here. SO yeah, it is a process- and as I have recommended in past posts, when doing A. Process., make a crap-ton amount. I doubled the recipe here and ended up with about 18.5 servings of 12oz mason jars of black beans that are freezable.

The final result: These beans are the most savory tasting beans I have ever had. I never thought black beans tasted somehow less from a can, but man, fresh off the stove- even after having been frozen a bit, they taste really rich and are still super healthy.

I have already used them this week for sides, and even as the main element for one lunch which was awesome, and used them in this great Heuveos Rancheros dish (no recipe to share here- I made the tortillas from scratch, fried up the eggs, purchased some cojita cheese, onion and cilantro and places the black beans on top of everything except for the eggs. I was able to add some great home made salsa too. Umm, yep it was good.)

#ZeroWasteBlackBeans #BlackBeansfromscratch #ZeroWastehuevosrancheros