¢ Mothercents ¢ - Laugh and Learn from Soaking, Simmering and Salvaging Beans

When Mistakes are the Mother of Invention

Not checking the chart
for soaking and cooking
 led to mushy beans.

Laughter is the valve on the pressure cooker of life.  Either you laugh and suffer, or you got your beans or brains on the ceiling.     - Wavy Gravy 

These wise words echo my feelings on an overcooked pot of black eyed peas. I know that checking the bean soaking/cooking chart leads to a more delectable dish, but still I skipped the step.

I fell into the seductive trap of "multi-tasking."  While I pored my attention into cookie baking, the peas dissolved into mush. Yes, sometimes multi-tasking is an inevitability.  When we upgrade it from necessity to virtue, we may set ourselves up for disappointment.

Properly boiled black eyed
peas keep their shape.
Image Credit: George Kelly

Motherwit, I am learning, is as much about salvaging messes as preventing them.  Fortunately,  mushy beans slip nicely into my salads where shapes, textures, and colors compensate for flawed peas. More importantly, mistakes can lead to discovery.

Another cook online boiled peas too long and posed the question on Veggie Boards: How can we use overcooked black query on what to do with overcooked peas?  A flurry of overcooked black-eyed pea suggestions ranged from pates to fritters. Would the cook have opened the door to those possibilities without the mistake?

Cooking beans yourself can not only save money.  It put us back in charge of what we eat.  Even errors can lead to possibilities, as we unpack in this week's Mothercents.

For Best Results - Or Making the Best of Your Results

1. Check the Chart
Most cooks try for the best possible results, and planning is the key.  Amanda Meyers has shared a complete bean soaking/cooking chart. Wikihow also offers step-by-step guide to cooking beans on the stove or in a pressure cooker. I would only add three tips to reduce gas and digestive discomfort.

• Soak the beans in baking soda. 

• Cook beans with a bay leaf.

The left pea is falling apart
while the right one stays firm.

• Let beans reach a boil for a few minutes, and then let them simmer.  

Properly cooked beans should hold their shape in the hand but mash easily between your fingers. The photo illustrates the difference, with the ideal bean on the right. If your end result resembles the left one, read on.

2. Making the Best of Bedraggled Beans 

Salads can hide a multitude of mistakes, but a wealth overcooked black eyed pea suggestions await on Veggie Boards.  Rather than repeat the ideas, I'll highlight some yummy options.

• Hummus: Mix them into a hummus with or even replacing garbanzo beans.  Mushiness is an asset in the blenders.
• Pate: Experiment with a simple black eyed pea and pecan pate or a more challenging black eyed pea pate.  Great on crackers for a party.
• Fritters:  Black eyed pea fritters or spicy African Accara capitalize on moisture to mix well with other ingredients.



A salad can mask misshapen peas, although
I'd rather not serve it to company. 

• Croquettes:  Add some quinoa and make this crispy on the outside, chewy on the inside treat from Vegan with a Vengeance.

Laughing and Learning

When we can make the best of whatever life brings, we grow. When we can laugh at our imperfect products, we reconnect with what makes us human.  Not one of us can play the hero or the clown all the time.  We need both to round us out as people.

Feeling trapped in mistakes chokes the chuckles right out of me.

Laughter comes easier to me when I see more possibilities, more choices.  So how about you?  How do you get your best results?  When life hands you lemons, how do you make lemonade?  Write us about it in the comments, and keep the conversation going.