Bean Journal, June 27

OK, I've decided that the Pinto is to beans what the swing is to kettlebells!  So underrated!

Now that I'm tasting, really tasting, all these beans I'm convinced that so few of them stand on their own.  It makes sense that we put a "smoked" piece of meat in our bean soups, and why so few varieties are available at our supermarkets.  Because, although, maybe, nutritious (I'm still wondering just how nutritious), so far, and that's not very far, I'm a little un-impressed with the nuances, but now understand that the flavor categories have been decided by varieties most commonly available.  Back to the under-rated Pinto.

It may be my Mexican roots, but Pinto beans rock!  I ordered pintos from Rancho Gordo with the idea of comparing their "gourmet", "heirloom", "home grown", "organic", "whatever" high class bean to my own "Mi Pueblo's" ordinary, maybe under ordinary, super marker brand....but alas, I didn't have any supermarket pintos to compare.  So I cooked up Rancho Gordo's batch thinking I would remember what "ordinary" supermarket pintos tasted like.....I was right!

Even without my supermarket "Western Family" cheap $.99 a bag of pintos I could taste the difference.  Seriously.  RG's pintos brought me back, maybe back to somewhere I've never been before, but these pinto beans touched something deep inside of my tastebud memory banks.  At this point I'm not sure I even want to continue to collect more varieties for tasting.  If it ain't broke, why fix it?

Pintos rock.  Did I say that already?  OK, there are many other beans that are "off the hook" too, and I wouldn't want to live without.  Those Italian butter beans?  Crazy good!  Garbanzos?  Crazy good!  White navy beans...seriously crazy good.  But all these others?  fine. maybe crazy good, but at the end of the day?

I'll keep experimenting because it's fun!  But in the mean time I'm going to give Pinto beans more respect!

As far as the black garbanzos....





Small, hard, took forever to cook, BUT interesting none the less.  I made some bean dip, but I had to experiment with ingredients I had on hand.  At first these beans were a big disappointment.  Expensive and appearing to be nothing special.  Not wanting to make hummus, I still took my cues from hummus.  Beans, garlic. olive oil, nut or seed butter, lemon.  Which is pretty much exactly what I did.  Not quite right.  If I would have thought of it I would have used the green tops of the scallions in the fridge for a "freshness" factor, but I forgot.  I was wanting a fresh jalapeno or green chili....or parsley.

What I liked about the finished product was the black skin ended up speckeling the dip, making it look like it had small black sesame seeds in it.  When I was putting it away I looked over on my kitchen counter and noticed a Japanese sweet potato!  Hmmnn...roasted sweet potato, black garbanzos, green scallions. garlic. jalapeno, nut butter....could be a "win"!  Next time!