I cook at least one big pot of beans every week. Buy dried beans in bulk to minimize shipping costs and packaging. Pick over and rinse, then cook in a slowcooker until tender. Using the slow cooker uses the least amount of electricity this side of a solar cooker. My slowcooker holds two pound of dried beans or 20 servings of cooked beans. That’s 27 cents a serving for organic beans and 15 cents for conventionally grown beans. The beans taste better than canned ones, with better texture and no tinny flavor. Use the cooking liquid to make broth or more nutritious oatmeal. Replace meat-based meals to reduce your carbon footprint.
Freeze the beans you don’t use that week. After a few weeks, you’ll have many kinds of beans to choose from to make everything from red beans and rice to hummus to black-bean soup.
This post was submitted by Linda Watson.
A variation on this (especially if you prefer soups to just beans) is to pre-prep a bunch of slow-cooker bean soups at once. First, soak the beans / peas / lentils overnight (this does reduce gas, even with slow-cooker cooking, in our experience). Then, spend a morning chopping carrots, onions, and other ingredients for bean soups (we like a touch of bacon and some meat for hearty chilis, but vegetarian alternatives are definitely more eco-friendly). Throw the soaked beans (drained), veggies, and any spices into freezer-safe containers. When you are ready for a hearty bean soup that evening, take a container out and dump the contents into your slowcooker.
I find I can pre-prep about a dozen meals very quickly this way, and nothing is lost by freezing the soaked beans and veggies before cooking (especially since I generally use dried spices anyways). A large chest freezer does use some electricity, but we worked it out to being $2.57 a month for our energy efficient chest-style freezer bought from Craig’s List for $50. This works well for chilis (often add canned tomato ingredients when you cook rather than freezing them to save space), bean soups, barbeque beans, split pea soups, and lentil soups. The best soup is often the one you make last, where you just throw in all the random things you have left over and see how it turns out
Comment by Ethel — October 20, 2009 @ 3:49 pm
I heartily agree! I also have a little round pillow (hand made from some old rags) that I use to cover the top. It keeps the heat in and helps with the long-cooking stuff like chick peas. You could use a folded towel if you don’t want to make a rag-pillow.
And one note for beginners: don’t add any salt to the water when cooking the beans. Salt will make the skins get tough and hard. If you want to add salt, add it to the recipe where you’re using the beans after they are already cooked. Of cours if you’re using anything “skinless” like split peas, the salt thing is moot.
Comment by Rebecca — October 20, 2009 @ 5:23 pm