Drunken Beans

First, I'm sorry, but I don't have a picture for this recipe. I wish I did because holy moley it was awesome. I had off last Thursday which meant I wanted to stay up late Wednesday night. I had some left over dried beans in my cabinet that I wanted to slow cook somehow, so when I got in, I began to soak them, roughly 1 c black and 1.5 c of garbanzo. After a movie and a glass of wine or two, I started to look up recipes for slow cooking the beans. I knew the two didn't exactly go together and I was tired of my usual beans and rice curry, so I wandered to my kitchen and had my own my drunk kitchen experience, only less cute and funny, more cutting my finger with a knife while chopping an onion.

First, my beans had not quite soaked the full four hours but I thought (decided) they were done enough. I found a saucepan that was too small, rinsed the beans thoroughly and boiled them for a few minutes. Really that was all I could do because it was too full and my water kept overflowing onto the burner. I got a majority of my how to cook dried bean information here but it was 2am and I didn't feel like reading all that. I knew that boiling them is most important for dangerous kidney beans but to be on the safe side, I boiled them first on high then on low for about 5 minutes. While this happened, I took out the crock pot and in it added chopped green pepper, onion, garlic scapes (I lacked garlic), 1 28oz can of diced tomatoes, 1 can of tomato paste, and the beans (rinsed again once they finished boiling. Supposed to make you less gassy, fyi). I also added a little of the beer that I was drinking. Anyways, I covered the lid and cooked on low. You apparently aren't supposed to add salt to beans when you are first cooking them because it can make them absorb liquid less.

I woke up around 10 to a house that smelled like tomato and garlic. I went to check on my bean mess expecting the worse but they looked beautiful and I felt like I was a goodfella making the best tomato sauce, only less stirring and more looking for helicopters. It was still a little wet (I'm not blaming the beer) so I added a small can of organic tomato sauce (maybe it was puree?) and seasoned it with salt, pepper, cumin, a little red pepper flakes and just a few shakes of cayenne. I covered and let it cook on low until around 2 when I added basil, cilantro and just a touch of thyme from my garden, then turned it off but left the lid on so it could marry and cool slowly.

This was beyond amazing. My goodness. It was warm and happy and comforting like spaghetti without being heavy like pasta. The garlic scapes gave it a mild garlic flavor and I like them, mainly for how they look but I think next time I'll use regular garlic. I love garlic too much. But I can see how this can be varied. Definitely not a regular meal with it being so hot out but for this past week, and really for the whole crockpot (equaled for me 7 meals) coming in at under $7, I'm super happy with it. I think next time I'll add mushrooms though.