Months ago, Jeremy bought this issue of Savuer magazine at the Atlanta airport, and we've been loving it ever since. They hailed Rancho Gordo as this fabulous heirloom bean-town, and after reading the descriptions of their merchandise, I knew that we were getting beans this year. They're not cheap at $5 a pound, but damn, they're worth it. I selected four types as a surprise for Jeremy: the borlotti, yellow-eye peas, scarlet runner beans and cranberry beans. Aren't they BEAUTIFUL???????
We used the scarlet runner beans first. The package instructed us to soak them overnight, but we soaked those damn things overnight, boiled them for nearly three hours with beer (the epazote smelled too much like burnt tires for us to ruin the beans), soaked them for two more days and boiled them another two hours. After all this, each bean is as big as your knuckle. The skin was starting to burst open, and the meat didn't have a particularly nice flavor. We made this bean salad:
Initially the salad was just okay, but the longer the beans sat in the frig, they better they tasted.
Next came this soup, a basic pasta fazool, and dear god, it was soooooo good. My only complaint was the pasta, which expanded to gigantic proportions, sucked up all the liquid and eventually disintegrated into the soup.
More beans are soaking today so we can try this recipe for curry beans.
Beans....the perfect anniversary gift!!
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