I made yesterday's pinto beans into chili. (In some varieties of English, it's spelled "chilli".) In fact, I had made chili con carne, with turkey, a few days ago. We ate it with the rice and lentils mixture that I had originally made as a stuffing for squash, which worked well. So I decided to put the leftover chili into the pinto beans, add some spices, and add some fresh tomatoes from the garden, all finely diced up. As you can see, the speckled or "painted" pinto beans, when cooked, take on a solid tan color.
The first chili was very good, and with the added spices and tomatoes, the second chili was even better. I also added some grilled zucchini and lemon squash that we had left over, and some chicken that I bought at Intermarché. The chicken is salt-cured and packaged for use as a flavor ingredient, like lardons (smoked pork belly, a.k.a. bacon). Aiguillettes ("little needles") are chicken "tenders" or tenderloins — the little strip of meat attached to the underside of the chicken breast. I'll buy them again.
And what about the beans? They weren't bad — more than edible. The experiment, cooking dried beans in mineral water rather than our hard tap water, was of course inconclusive. I'll repeat it, more scientifically. I have a one-kilo bag of dried pink beans. Soon I'll cook half of those in one pot in mineral water, and the other half in another pot in distilled (déminéralisée) water, side by side on the stove and for the same amount of time. Maybe that will be interesting. This is what passes for entertainment at my house.
By the way, we had an emergency run to the vet's yesterday afternoon. I think Walt might have a post about that on his blog today.
My beans are still soaking! Some of them swelled nicely, some didn't. These are very old beans, and that's certainly the reason. À suivre
ReplyDeleteAs far as I'm concerned, soaking is really optional.
DeleteSoft or hard still to be experimented, but what a shame that the pretty colour and markings were lost from those beans.
ReplyDeleteThat's the nature of pinto beans. Love 'em or leave 'em.
DeleteWe have the softest water in the world, so we are told. I have experienced many places where shampoo does not lather up. Your experiment will be interesting.
ReplyDeleteMy mother used to have a water softener, and there was also one here when we moved in 14 years ago. It was not operational. I'm not sure I like soft or softened water very much. It seems almost greasy. Slick. You feel like you can never get the shampoo out of your hair or the soap off your body after a bath or shower.
DeleteI just remembered that on our farm my mother used to use Calgon water softener in the washing. I understand what you mean about feeling greasy, like if I use body wash rather than soap, but I wouldn't say our water is like that.
DeleteWe have soft water which means adding less soap for washing clothes, etc. I need to try cooking some pinto beans to see if our water works better than yours. Your chili looks delicious.
ReplyDeleteThe chili was good. It looks kind of yellow-brown, but I think that's because I put in some yellow tomatoes along with red ones when I fixed it up.
DeleteOur house in NY state had a water softener built in, well water is apparently hard .. full of metals .. All I know is that, without softener, it stains white porcelain if there is a drip and it won't bubble quickly when cooking .. Every once in a while, a person can long for some City living where the pipes don't make noise and the water behaves itself and soap bubbles ;) ..
ReplyDeleteInconclusive. Hmm.
ReplyDeleteI'm running over to Walt's blog now to see what happened!