yeah, im just about at the point where im trading dried beans for canned. *cries*
my real concern with dried beans is how do i get a hambone with a lieele meat left on it, short of cooking a ham.
you could work at a restaurant or butcher shop and take home the leftover hambones, i guess. But most of my hambones are leftovers from christmas or thanksgiving. i just dont cook enough hams a year to get enough hambones for soup.
My mom always used to buy “smoked ham hocks” at the grocery store. Me, I’ve given up on the ham flavor. Why be tied to traditional tastes?
rachel: you can ask the butcher at the counter of your grocer’s meat dept. Usually if you’re friendly and courteous, they are more than happy to give you any bones you want for cooking (and sometimes you can get bird carcasses too! oh boy!).
Personally, I am always wary of the “bean soup” mixes that come dried. Different types and different size beans rehydrate at different rates and with different methods (some need warm water bath, some need cold water overnight, some you can just boil straight from being dried), and they never turn out for me.
I don’t do the mixed beans anymore, but one thing I liked about them was the different rates of rehydration. By the time everything is all cooked up, some of the stuff (especially lentils) has turned to mush, while other stuff is still whole and relatively firm. The result is a soup thickened by the mush of overcooked little stuff, but still containing a variety of recognizable beans.
YMMV, of course.
No more ham for me. I throw in a little green curry paste, and we’re set.
yeah, im just about at the point where im trading dried beans for canned. *cries*
my real concern with dried beans is how do i get a hambone with a lieele meat left on it, short of cooking a ham.
you could work at a restaurant or butcher shop and take home the leftover hambones, i guess. But most of my hambones are leftovers from christmas or thanksgiving. i just dont cook enough hams a year to get enough hambones for soup.
My mom always used to buy “smoked ham hocks” at the grocery store. Me, I’ve given up on the ham flavor. Why be tied to traditional tastes?
rachel: you can ask the butcher at the counter of your grocer’s meat dept. Usually if you’re friendly and courteous, they are more than happy to give you any bones you want for cooking (and sometimes you can get bird carcasses too! oh boy!).
Personally, I am always wary of the “bean soup” mixes that come dried. Different types and different size beans rehydrate at different rates and with different methods (some need warm water bath, some need cold water overnight, some you can just boil straight from being dried), and they never turn out for me.
I don’t do the mixed beans anymore, but one thing I liked about them was the different rates of rehydration. By the time everything is all cooked up, some of the stuff (especially lentils) has turned to mush, while other stuff is still whole and relatively firm. The result is a soup thickened by the mush of overcooked little stuff, but still containing a variety of recognizable beans.
YMMV, of course.
No more ham for me. I throw in a little green curry paste, and we’re set.