How to Cook and Prepare Beans and Lentils

Beans! Beans! Are good for your heart

But the more you eat, the more you...have health smarts!

Beans and lentils are healthy types of protein and contain fiber, vitamins, minerals, and phytochemicals - making them something that everyone should eat all the time. Lentils and legumes are quick-cooking and require no soaking, and can often be cooked in as little as 30 minutes. Beans are available dried, canned, and frozen. Frozen and canned beans are all pre-cooked and can be used immediately. Dried beans require soaking and cooking. Once soaked, beans can be cooked on the stove, in a slow cooker or in a pressure cooker.

Lentils and legumes include: red, green, and yellow lentils, split dhals like channa, tuver and masoor dhals, adzuki beans and mung beans.

Dried beans and peas include: black beans, red and white kidney beans, black-eyed peas, pinto beans, navy beans, garbanzo or chickpeas.

How to cook beans, also the soak and cook method:
1 cup of dried beans yields approx. 2 cups of cooked beans, or enough for 4 people.

1. Place 1 cup dried beans in a large bowl and cover with a quart of water. Let soak overnight, or at least 6 hours. 
2. When ready to cook, drain the soaking water and rinse beans with fresh water.  In general, soaking hydrates the beans and makes the complex starches within the beans available. Rinsing soaked beans and draining off the soaking water reduces the raffinose sugars that can cause gas.  Some methods include saving the soaking water due to nutritional content. Save the water or bean broth, once you've cooked the beans - as most of the nutrition is in the bean and some may be found in the bean broth water (after it's been cooked). 
3. In a large stockpot (such as 4 qt stock pot) add rinsed beans and 2-3 quarts of water. 
4. Bring to a boil, then reduce heat to a simmer and cover slightly. Cook for 45-60 minutes, testing beans to see if they are soft enough.  
5. Once cooked you can add them into your recipe, or store them, with their broth either in the freezer or fridge. Cooked beans in broth will last up to a week in the fridge; cooked beans without broth will last a few days. 

How to cook lentils:
1 cup of dried lentils will yield approx. 2 cups of cooked lentils, enough to serve at least 4 people.

1. Rinse 1 cup lentils to get rid of any duds or grit, then add lentils to a large stockpot (such as a 4 qt stockpot) with 2 quarts of water. 
2. Bring to a boil, then reduce heat to a simmer and cover slightly. Cook 25-30 minutes. 
3. Once cooked you can add them into your recipe, or store them, in an airtight container in the fridge or freezer.  Cooked lentils with broth will keep for 1 week in the fridge, and for a few days without broth.

Notes: because lentils take much less time to cook they are ideal additions to soups, because you don't have to add much extra water to cook them.  

Asafoetida powder can be added to the cooking water when cooking beans and lentils and is thought to help make the beans and lentils more digestible (e.g gas reducing).

Bean broth can be used just like vegetable broth in any other dish you are cooking.  I toss in a bay leaf while cooking beans to season the broth and it gives the kitchen a very nice aroma. 

My vegetable garden in Belgium

Belgishe Groententuin

Post number 101 - blogs are self-serving (all about me) tools, and I find it funny that this being the 101st post, is about gardening.  Growing things seems to have taken over my life (I have a slightly overweight cat, I just started 2 more sourdough starters, and there is something funky in the fridge). I am more than eager and happy to have this rare time to devote to this process.  I set out spring veggies a few weeks back and have been back to harvest salad veggies including lettuce and radishes. My peas are growing with much vigor, and I planted some strawberries I bought from the Bloemenmarkt  (a gardener's market the first week of May), to which they are happily enjoying their new homes along with peas and swiss chard. 

I'm less enthusiastic about summer veggies, but am stubborn, and refuse to think they will not grow. I bought patio seeds back at the Flower Market in Amsterdam (which are geared towards UK gardeners), so I remain hopeful that these will grow.  I check in often at the botanical gardens and I spy lots of tomatoes and peppers being set out in others vegetable gardens.  

During Roma's visit, I was able to harden the seedlings off for about 2 weeks.  After she left, I decided to plant the seedlings (thanks for your support Nick), so I have 2 eggplants, 2 tomatoes, and 2 peppers.  This didn't even make a dent in my seedlings.  I somehow managed to still have a dozen or so leftover tomato and pepper seedlings.  Summer cannot be complete without tomatoes, right? My thinking exactly. 

While the seedlings survived in their neglected makeshift homes, they are spindly and small.  I read somewhere that a vegetable gardener should always plant a seed for themselves, plant one for the birds, and one (or more) for the weather.

Roma in Leuven

Ahhhh, updates, I've been slacking.

Roma, my cousin, was just visiting for the past 2 weeks. We spent some time lounging around Leuven and also sightseeing around Belgium.  We were able to sample many fine brews, and I made sure to send Roma back with Belgium's finest...some Westvleteren 12's. She also stuffed her bag to the limit with pounds of chocolate, and other goodies from Antwerp (Antwerp is a shopping hub).  Roma's visit felt like a bit of home, she brought me Cooking Light magazines, fashion mags, and trashy tabloids, along with dosa mix and Indo snacks (chakri and chevdo).  It was really hard to see her go, but it was a great vacation.

During Romes's visit, we toured Leuven, visited the St. Sixtus Abbey at Westvleteren, managed to drive into France while trying to get home (it is really easy to get lost), spent some nice sunny days visiting the Ardennes region, and spent days sight-seeing Brugge and Antwerp.





My father-in-law, Hans, was also able to visit us as he was traveling back to the states, and took a nice Belgian detour.  We got the best weather yet (felt like low 80's in the sun), and took full advantage by visiting the Semois River in the Ardennes and eating plenty of wonderful food around Leuven.




May continues to be a great month:
Happy Birthday Dad!
Congratulations graduates: Neil, Vishal, and Chani! Neil is an official Texas Ex, Vishal is a survivor of law school, and Chani you are an official allied health professional.  Woohoo!
I'm going to be an aunt to a BABY GIRL!!! Woohoo CONGRATS Kavi!

Curtains

I hung curtains today - all by myself!  Ikea instructions were useless (that is where I bought the rods), and figuring out tools in Dutch/French/German was slightly more difficult than I would like to relay here.  The walls we have here are drywall and crumble very easily.  Mom, Dad, you'd be proud. 

Yes, that is fairly craptastic picture, but I am excited that I didn't break the rods!  My cousin, Roma, is set to arrive Sunday morning so we're tidying up the place a bit and getting to those things we are too lazy to  prioritize on weekends.  File that under your useless blog post category =)

Artichokes, updates, and pictures

This post is mostly about my new found excitement for artichokes and also an update of sorts. It's easier to post pics and recipes then tell you about daily/weekly/monthly happenings.  So first, artichokes! I bought an artichoke and couldn't believe how delicious and easy it was to cook up and eat, especially when you serve it with some garlic butter. You simply wash them, trip the thorns off the leaves, rub the cut parts with lemon, cut the top third off, and trim off the stem, then steam them for about 30-40 minutes until the leaves are soft and can be pulled off.

I've been noticing a lot of healthy looking spring goods at the area markets including Belgian asparagus (which is white and plump), artichokes, strawberries, and alpine strawberries.  Leuven and its surrounding areas have 4 farmers and crafts markets during the week, much like the Carrboro, Chapel Hill, and Hillsborough - except these markets are all within biking distance and are open almost all day.   The farmer's markets in the US really want to show off locally grown foods, and coming from an ag state such as NC, you can show off something nearly year round. The markets here contain pretty much everything you could by at a grocery store, so it made me really happy to see some farm-fresh looking produce around.  The markets also sell sewing supplies, games, crafts, clothes, shoes, jewelry and of course, lovely flower and vegetable plants. The produce tends to be cheaper than the grocery stores, and this weekend we really came away with some excellent finds including ewe's milk brie and yogurt (from this sheep's farm: La Bergerie d'Acremont ), artichokes, and some delectable alpine strawberries which tasted like mushed up strawberry, grape, and raspberry.

A few posts back I mentioned starting a sourdough starter. I named Starter 1 St. John, and never got around to starting Starter 2. This was in inherent fail, and went downhill very quickly.  The smells went from being lightly fermented to puke, and I couldn't imagine that it would come back from the puke smell, so I discarded it (and as Karl knows, I am generally lazy about throwing out stuff).  I'm going to attempt Starter 2 at some point, but will not write about it again until it is successful. In the mean time I will stick to my regular outings to Patisserie Dirk.

My spring garden is out and has been for a few weeks. The best thing about gardening is how infectious it is.  Someone in the building has set out pots next to mine. Sugar snaps, spring onions, lettuce, radishes, and swiss chard are all coming up and growing slowly. The seedlings of summer veggies I started inside are doing much better than I anticipated and will be transplanted to smaller pots.

window box with sugar snap peas and green onions

radishes, lettuce mix, and spring onions

some modest pots

view of the shared patio

As May has arrived, we are getting ready for visitors. Roma will be arriving in 2 weeks and so I've been looking into things to do and places to see.  The job search is going slowly so no exciting news to report, but this means that I will get to spend some quality time with our many visitors. So visitors, plan on home-cooked meals, lots of sleeping in, bike-riding, and listening to me attempt Dutch. Hey now, I do this for you.

Since we are nieuwe inwoners or new residents Leuven's City Hall Council invited us for a welcoming at the historic stad huis (city hall). This welcoming was done to tell new residents about the history of Leuven, tell them more about the population and city, and of course, answer any questions that new residents may have. The majority of the meeting was run in Dutch, and I was able to pick out snippets, but am finding that I'm understanding a lot more than I did in Jan. For instance, Leuven hosts a Badminton Tournament in September, the city used to have one of the largest beer guilds during the Middle Ages, which the French destroyed, the city is proud of Katholiek Universiteit Leuven and beer, and they gave us a tour of the city council rooms, including the mayor's office. They had a reception where they had passed appetizers and served beer from Inbev (Stella Artois, Leffe Blond and Bruin, Belle-vue Kriek, and of course other cola products).  I can't imagine a US city serving new residents alcohol and then letting city hall foot the bill. Amazing. 

Stad Huis or City Hall

During the meeting, I attempted to ask questions. Since most of the sessions were being conducted in Dutch and some English, I figured it would be fine to ask in some Dutch and English as well. Now, if you know me, I talk fast. When I'm nervous, it gets even faster, it's like I'm spitting words out because I can't figure out how to put them together in a sentence. The first question was asked in Dutch, I think it had to do with biking and roads. As a side, there are 30,000 students in Leuven, and about 90,000 residents. It's a huge student town.  My questions were about Dutch courses, allied health professional organizations, and community gardening.  I started off my questions in Dutch (Ik heeft drie vragen. Mag kan ik spreekt en engels? Then I shooted them off in English) The following 5 questions were all asked in Dutch. I'm feeling like a royal jerk at this point.  The majority of the questions had to do with student bikers. They have really worked up a bad reputation in this town.  During the reception I was approached by some very nice people that came up to express their gratitude at congratulate me on my attempt to speak and learn Dutch.  Isn't that nuts? I didn't even really speak any Dutch. I just said, "I have 3 questions, but may I please ask them in English?"  That really sums up how people are here though, if you try and speak and make a genuine effort they really are kind and thank you for attempting, but then, they speak to you in English. Come on city, speed up my ID card process. 

Last weekend we went to Cantillon Brewery for their Quintessence tasting. It is a slow foods-esque beer and food pairing and features lambic and gueuze beers. Karl also wrote a blogel (blog+novel?) on Cantillon at Leuven Groovin'.

Cantillon Quintessence Tasting

Other adventures include a visit to the Royal Greenhouses in Laeken, a quick picture and frites stop at the Atomium, and the Leuven Botanical Gardens. The Royal Greenhouses, built in the 19th century, were commissioned by King Leopold II and were an architectural innovation in that time period because they were constructed of metal and glass. They are, quite simply, beautiful. These greenhouses are only open to the public 3 weeks out of the year.  The botanical gardens in Leuven are in full bloom and the tulips cannot be missed. 

Royal Greenhouses and Leuven Botanical Gardens

Ahh and finally, an update on what I've been cooking and eating these past weeks. I baked a Yeasted Sugar Cake that I found in my Deborah Madison cookbook, but also here.  It's cake that is denser, lighter, less sweet, buttery soft, semi-leavened cake which tastes excellent with whipped cream or yogurt and fresh spring strawberries. I cooked some five-spice Chinese-style noodles and vegetable stir-fry, aloo parathas with channa masala, red-lentil kofta's with a saffron rice pilaf, savory mushroom crepes, and nachos with refried beans.  Links to recipes should be underlined and highlighted above.  Visits will be welcomed with food. Hope everyone is doing well and, of course, eating good food. 

five-spice Chinese style noodles

aloo paratha

Abdij van Vlierbeek - The Abbey of Vlierbeek

Abdij van Vlierbeek