I used my pressure cooker!
Bryan and I have decided that during graduate school beans and rice will be an integral part of our diet. I cooked my first MBA pot of beans two weeks ago. They tasted great, but even after twelve hours of soaking and three hours of cooking, they were kind of hard. Bryan asked a friend of his from Brazil how to get the beans to the right level of mushiness. His answer? The pressure cooker.
So this week I read a bunch of bean recipes online and decided I just had to jump in and do it. My pressure cooker had been in the cupboard for so long that it was covered in dust. After washing it and rereading the directions twice, I started throwing in the ingredients. I made sure I stayed nearby as the beans cooked (which was made possible by the boys creating Halloween decorations quietly at the table) and listened to the gentle rocking of the pressure gauge. It was tricky getting the fire at just the right height so that the gauge rocked, but didn't threaten lift-off.
Bryan made a huge deal out of the fact that I made beans in the pressure cooker. It was sweet. I think it's both funny and a little sad that it's taken me ten years to finally cook Brazilian food. My Portuguese-speaking husband is quite pleased.
And the best part? I didn't blow-up my kitchen! I didn't even get beans on the ceiling.
2 comments:
I'm impressed! Great job!! I only cook beans in my crock pot but sometimes they're a bit mushy.
Old beans do NOT cook to a soft stage. You need to get new beans. Don't buy a more than you will use in a few weeks time. You can cook new beans on the stove in the time you spent pressure cooking the old ones.
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