Last week, I posted about my attempt to sprout a bag of locally grown kidney beans.  I wanted to know if it could be done and if they would be easier to digest.  I also wanted to stop them from being poisonous (if they are, in fact, poisonous).

We left off with the beans in the jars and the jars in ghost costumes, waiting to see if the beans would sprout little tails.

They did.

Ok.  What’s next?

Next, we cook them.  I tried two different recipes and I can’t tell you much of anything about them.

I made chili and a recipe a friend posted on Hungry  Chicken Homestead’s Facebook page.

First, the chili …

I started by boiling the beans until they were soft. Maybe it was an hour, maybe it was 20 minutes. I can’t remember.

As you can see, this is a lot of beans, but I used them all for the chili.  Since I only included a pound of ground beef, 3 pints of tomatoes and all the rest of the chili powder I had in the house (about a 1/4 cup) the chili tasted pretty bland.  It mostly tasted like beans.

That’s why I’m not giving you the recipe.  You’ll never trust me again.

“She doesn’t measure anything,” you’ll say, just like my late husband used to, “And she doesn’t use enough spices.”

I did eat the chili, though, with plenty of cheese and sour cream.

Here is a better recipe, from my friend Annie, a person I also refer to as my Homesteading Hero.  Annie can find high quality food and cook it into something delicious faster than anyone else I know.

We love beans. I buy cook, and freeze. We use a bean pot, a bit of lard,a little onion, celery peppers, water and ham/sausage/bacon… And let cook low and slow all day. When I spent sometime in Mexico. I was taught this method by an old hispanic lady. And I was told never throw out the bean water. Keep whole or heat another pan with lard. And mash and fry. Throw on top of some volcano rice(my kids new favorite rice).

I tried this too, but by the time I finished the chili, I was tired of eating beans.  It’s in the freezer and I will report on it as soon as possible.

It sure smelled good!

Even though I got more food than I could eat, I did get answers to my questions.

Well? What did you learn, Monkey?

I learned that kidney beans can be sprouted and they’re cute while they do it.

I learned I still have no idea whether the online predictions that unsprouted beans or uncooked sprouted kidney beans will kill us all are true.

And … how shall I say this delicately, gentle reader?  I learned that sprouting beans may make them easier for the novice to digest, but they are still hard to digest.

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© 2013 Hungry Chicken Homestead

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