Bean Day!

Before I "went vegan," my mom and I used to cook together frequently.  I would go to her house and we'd make a HUGE batch of something - cannelloni, lasagna, some kind of chicken, minestrone, you name it - and we'd portion it out, freeze it, and I'd take a bunch home!  It was fabulous - time with mom, delicious food, and a stocked freezer, what more could I want?  When I decided to stop eating animal products, I was kind of sad that we wouldn't really have this tradition anymore.  But then I realized, why couldn't we?
I had a bean dilemma that I needed her advice on anyways... We were going through a lot of beans with our new diet.  A LOT of beans!  Our local produce stand sold 3 or 4 types of dried beans for only $1.29 a pound, so I knew that dry beans were the way to go financially - a can of low-sodium beans is usually around $1, so I'd be saving a lot in the long run by using dry beans!  But I'm not one of those people who plans meals.  I usually cook a few times a week, and live on leftovers the rest of the time.  I go grocery shopping to buy what I'm in the mood for, and sometimes I wake up wanting something completely different than I thought I did yesterday, so planning meals usually ends up in lots of wasted food at my house.  I envy those who are able to plan weekly menus!  I'm more of a scavenger in my own kitchen!  So dry beans pose a problem - I have to soak them overnight and then they take a few hours to cook!  Not exactly convenient.  So I thought of my mom and our big cooking fests, and asked her if she wanted to do a bean day!
Aaron and I went to the produce stand and got 4 gallon-sized ziploc bags full of beans... we don't do things small!  I soaked all the beans overnight and then transported them to mom's house.

We used mom's giant stock pot for the garbanzos, since they have the shortest cooking time, and we split all the black beans into batches for the pressure cooker - only 20 minutes a batch!  All together, it took more time to portion the beans and wait for them to cool than it did to actually cook them!

Now I have a freezer full of beans and I always keep some of each kind in the fridge to be handy whenever I want or need them - for bean burgers, hummus, falafel, to add to salads, chili, stew, soups, pasta, black bean brownies, chick pea "cookie dough," or other endless applications!

 Here's one of my favorite bean recipes:

Texas Caviar
1 can (or equivalent) of each of the following:
                      black beans, garbanzo beans, kidney beans, black-eyed peas, sweet corn
1 red and one green pepper, diced
1/2 red onion, diced
1 can olives, diced (I like kalamata for an extra saltiness)
2 cans diced tomatoes
1/4-1/2 cup minced fresh parsley or cilantro
1/2 cup olive oil
1/2 cup vinegar of your choice
1/4 cup sugar

Mix together all beans and veggies in a large bowl.  In a small saucepan, combine oil, vinegar, and sugar.  Heat til sugar is dissolved, oil and vinegar seem to be mixing, and it is almost boiling.  Pour over the veggies and let sit for 10 minutes.  Stir, let sit for 10 more minutes.  Drain excess liquid out, and put salad in the fridge.
Serve with tortilla chips, or eat with a spoon.  You can also use as a salad topping, or add cooked pasta for a yummy pasta salad :)