Beans, Beans and More Beans...

I have been buying and saving dried beans with the good intentions of making; baked beans, re-fried beans, black beans & rice, hummus from chick peas and so on...  well, they've been stored in large plastic containers and I've just never used them. I'll admit to cheating... for the sake of ease, I've bought the large cans of kidney beans to make chili and the cans of black beans for soups & black beans and rice... BUT NO MORE!! 

I discovered in a favorite old cookbook of mine, a paragraph written by a Mennonite woman, Ada Beachy, the NEW TO ME concept of canning the dried beans so they are all ready to use! I LOVE THAT CONCEPT...  if you want to read her paragraph, check it out here!

I checked out online how other people did this and found a great lot of advice of what to do and what NOT to do too! (Like... LOOSELY fill the jars with the prepared beans NOT solid pack and then fill the jars with the hot water leaving the head space.)

I'm SOOOO EXCITED!! I tried kidney beans and black beans first... it was a lot of work, but I think it will be well worth it come winter time! NOW, I'm going to try the navy beans & pinto beans & chick peas... and keep on going!

Since I didn't soak the beans overnight, I quick boiled them, timing it for a couple of minutes after they started to boil then soaked them in this hot water for an hour.

Afterwards, drain and rinse the beans and then fill the pots back up with fresh, water and allow them to boil for another 30 minutes.

NOW drain the beans (KEEP THIS LIQUID) fill the quart jars LOOSELY to the shoulder area of the jars.

Add 1 tsp. of canning salt and then add the saved liquid allowing 1 inch of head space. (The headspace allows for the beans to expand a bit more during processing.)

You need to use a pressure canner (NOT a water bath)...  90 minutes (for quarts... 75 minutes for pints) at 10 pounds!

It's so much fun to see the jars starting to line up on the pantry shelves!

PLEASE: IF you are going to try this method... do your own research! Different areas of the country require different pressure canning times. (ie: the length of time may be greater if you live higher up in elevation!)

This post shared on Healthy 2Day Wednesdays and Simple Lives Thursday! Go check out some of the other ideas!

SIDE NOTE:  I did try to can chick peas (garbanzo beans) the next day. I tried the dry method putting a scant 1/2 cup in a pint, 1/2 tsp. salt and boiling water leaving 1 inch of headspace...  pressure canner for 75 minutes at 10 pounds of pressure. I can't say I'm overly thrilled with this outcome. They didn't fill the jars like I assumed they would. It could be they were too old. I will try again using BOTH methods and see if it is the peas/beans being a little too old or if the 'presoak/cook' method just works better for me.  I'll let you know! :)