How to Store and Preserve Beans

** This is part of my vegan Soup to Nuts fava bean recipe series. For a list of different recipes, check out this post about fava beans! ** 


After going totally crazy over fava beans this season, I still had some left over which I had to do something with since we were all beaned out. Well here are some techniques that you could use to keep your beans for a rainy day.

1- Blanching

Blanching is a very common and easy vegetable preserving method. I talk about it in my how to properly freeze foods post. Traditionally this is use to fresh freeze your green veggies retaining their texture and bright green color. Basically you need to boil a pot of water with some salt, squeeze a lemon, then drop the beans in for about 3-4 mins. Remove immediately and immerse in ice cold water, you can add ice cubes to make this process faster. Sometimes I do not have ice on hand, so I immerse under running cold water. Bag in freezer bags, and pop them in the freezer.

Blanched beans will last a very long time before getting freezer burn. They store for at least 6 months if packing is sealed well.

2- Freezing [un-blanched] beans

For those lazy days when you do not want to blanch, you can simply wash your beans well and freeze in baggies. These un-blanched beans will not retain their color as well as blanched veggies, and they will only last about 3 months before losing some of their quality. However this is a good quick fix, and especially if you plan on using them in the near future.

3- Cook Bean Meals, then Freeze

You can also make extra batched of your favorite bean dish, and freeze it, using the proper freezing methods of course. I froze the bean stew and it kept very nicely.

Other methods which I haven't tried include:

4- Drying your own beans in the oven

This article has detailed steps. I didn't try this out though, freezing seemed easier and less time consuming. However many a harvester rave about home dried beans.

5- Vine Drying Beans


I saw this article on vine drying beans, by the National Center for Home Food Preserving, and it intrigued me so much, I want to grow my own beans now! Basically you keep them on the vine until they are all dried and withered, then pop them in the oven to kill any residual bacteria.

Choose your favorite method or try them all, but take advantage of fava bean season and stock up for the rest of the year!


Have you every tried preserving beans before?

Broad Bean Tomato Stew **Vegan**

** This is part of my vegan Soup to Nuts fava bean recipe series. For a list of different recipes, check out this post about fava beans! ** 

I love stews. Especially ones that have a tomato, or tomato sauce base. Lots of Egyptian stews, like this Zucchini stew, use a vegetable, and some kind of meat stock. 

With my kitchen overflowing with broad beans, I knew I had to try to make a stew with them. Gladly, the recipe worked and was even better than I thought. The key here is not to cook it for a long time like traditional stews. We want the beans to stay green and not mush.

Easy, simple, Egyptian style bean stew perfect for vegans. We had them with white rice and bean burgers. 

The batch made a lot, and I was able to freeze about 2 portions, and it was good as new when I reheated it.

Ingredients:

4 cups fresh broad beans, shelled and washed

1 meduim sized onion, chopped

1 kg fresh tomatoes, pureed

2 Tbsp tomato sauce 

2 large carrots, chopped

salt and pepper to taste

6 cups water

Preparation:

Sautee the onion, adding the salt. Once translucent, add in the pureed tomatoes and carrots. Add in the beans, pepper, tomato paste, give it a stir. Add in the water. Allow to come to the boil, then cook for about 20 mins, or until beans are wrinkly but still green.

Enjoy!

Do you love stews? or prefer just sauteed vegetables?

Pan-fried Vegan Bean Burgers with an Oriental Twist

** This is part of my vegan Soup to Nuts fava bean recipe series. For a list of different recipes, check out this post about fava beans! **

Burgers are a real treat, and I am very picky when it comes to naming a good burger. This is a quick vegan burger, with Egyptian flavors which jump out and remind you of traditional Taameyya [Falafel].

You could always make these with the baked veggies fries, which I had originally posted with my Mighty Burger recipe.

Feel free to tweak the recipe, and let me know how it goes. It took me a while to be able to find a vegan combination that would bind properly since vegetarian burgers usually use egg as a binder. The boiled potato is perfect, but needs the extra oats. The measurements are approximate since I had to add a little oats, then I found I had more beans in the pot so I added those. Generally, the mixture should be soft, but not fall apart when you make patties.

Ingredients:

2 cups Oats [keep some for on top the patties]

1 small Potato, boiled

2 Tbsp olive oil

4 cups freshly shelled fava beans, washed and rinsed.

2 Tbsp Cilantro/ coriander seeds

½ tsp Chili powder

1 tsp Cumin

½ cup Parsely

Small onion, minced

Garlic clove, minced

Salt

Boil the potato until soft. Put everything in the food processor and mix well. Shape into medium sized balls, and then pat down into patties. Bread lightly with oats [this helps prevent them sticking to the pan].

Heat a pan with 2 Tbsp of oil. Pan-fry until golden brown on each side.

Enjoy!



Have you tried vegan burgers? What did you think?

Revisiting an Oldie: Fava Bean Cilantro Rice

** This is part of my vegan Soup to Nuts fava bean recipe series. For a list of different recipes, check out this post about fava beans! **




This is one of the first posts I made, but a real treasure. I usually make this rice with frozen beans, but this season the fresh beans give it a much better uumph. Coriander [aka cilantro] rice with fava [broad] beans is one of my absolute favorite dishes when you need to make a meatless dish, with these beans as proteins. 


To keep the beans green, with a bit of a crunch, rather then the mushy texture I am used to, you need to add in the beans halfway through cooking the rice. Do not mix it in until the rice is cooked a not to ruin the steaming process.


To see the original post click here.


Enjoy!


Do you like your rice spiced with additions or you prefer your rice plain? 

Thai Inspired: Tom Yam Vegan Fava Bean Soup

** This is part of my vegan Soup to Nuts fava bean recipe series. For a list of different recipes, check out this post about fava beans! **


My love for Asian food is not a one night stand kind of thing. It’s more of a ‘till death do us part’ relationship. The colors, the excessive use of vegetables, and the chopsticks are only a few of the things that keep this relationship nice and spicy [pun intended!].

Thai food is probably my favorite Asian type of food, and I wanted to make a vegan version of the famous Tom Yam soup, which usually has shrimp and fish sauce in it.

Don’t call the food police if I do not adhere to the authentic recipe, I know there is a lot of controversy on what exactly goes into this soup, but like I said, it’s my take on it.


Ingredients:

- 2 lemongrass stalks, cut in fours, lengthwise
- 2 cups of sliced mushrooms
- 1 tablespoon of freshly sliced ginger
- 1 onion, sliced thinly, not diced
- 1 red chili sliced in half lengthwise and emptied of the seeds.
[This makes the soup mild, if you want to be adventurous, chop it up into the soup, don’t come back to me crying]
- 1 Tbsp tomato paste
- 1 Tbsp oil
- 2 cups of washed, fresh fava beans
- Salt [since we are not using fish sauce]
- Coriander, fresh, shopped roughly [for garnish]
- 6 cups water

Warm up the oil in a pot, and add in the onions, chili pepper, ginger, salt, lemongrass. Stir that until the onions are halfway cooked [almost translucent], then add in the mushrooms. I usually see the mushrooms undercooked in this dish, but I love cooked mushrooms and that nutty flavor, so here I cooked them through, until brown, but cook it to your preference.

Add in the tomato paste, and the water. Allow to come to a boil, and then add in the beans.

Cook for about 10 minutes, plate, add in the garnish coriander, then serve hot!

You should remove the lemon grass stalks, but I keep them in for extra flavor, and I don’t mind the crunch. Sue me.

Enjoy!

Do you like Asian food? Why or why not?

Thyme and Fava Bean Salad

** This is part of my vegan Soup to Nuts fava bean recipe series. For a list of different recipes, check out this post about fava beans! **


Wanting to take different flavor combinations for my Fava Bean [Fuul Heraty] mania, I aimed for an Italian-ish salad. Originally intending to use rocket or watercress, I ended up using the milder iceberg lettuce and red cabbage combo, and a strong dressing.

Ingredients:

Dressing:

-         ½ cup Olive oil

-         1/3 cup Balsamic vinegar

-         1/3 cup Fresh thyme, chopped finely

-         3 fresh basil leaves, torn [I had to use dry basil]

-         Salt and pepper

-         Dash of paprika [or chili powder if you can take the heat]

Veggies [adjust the ratios to your liking, I really didn’t measure anything out!] :

-         Your favorite greens, I used lettuce with some red cabbage, since I already had that in the fridge.    

           For a spicier salad, use rocket or watercress.

-         Cherry tomatoes

-         Fresh fava beans [if you can stop snacking on them!]

Wash and chop the veggies, do not chop the beans.

Mix up the dressing items in an old jar with a lid, then close the lid and shake like there is no tomorrow.

I like to add the dressing on the salad right before eating; the lettuce stays crispier that way.

Enjoy!

Salad, do you hate it or love it? How do you eat your salad?

Snacking on Fresh Fava Beans the Egyptian way (Fuul Heraty فول حراتى)

** This is part of my vegan Soup to Nuts fava bean recipe series. For a list of different recipes, check out this post about fava beans! **

Side road street sellers, with their little donkey carts with mounds of the bean pods, yelling out their produce is quite common at this time of year. The fresh fuul [Fava bean] season is just another excuse for us Egyptians to snack, just like our love for roasted seeds. 

I never had this Egyptian snack fresh, since we were never in Egypt when I was little during its season. We only were able to get frozen bags of the beans to use in a spiced rice dish.

How to snack on Fuul Heraty?

This is typically how Egyptians eat this legume when it is season.

Basically, you open the pod, and pop them in your mouth. But be careful, after a while, your fingers will get a little stained [like a grass stain]. If you are having people over, I suggest you remove the beans from the pod yourself, and then put the beans in cold water until your guests arrive. Drain, sprinkle some salt [optional], and enjoy!

What less known traditional snack do you know? 

7 Ways to Use Fresh Broad [Fava] Beans (Fuul Heraty فول حراتى) **vegan**

Like beans in a pod

I love beans, they just are little dicots of happiness. Egyptians are very partial to legumes, and Fuul Mudamas is just about THE number one official Egyptian breakfast, with Taameyya [aka Falafel] being a close second. What do these two truly Egyptian dishes have in common? Fuul Heraty, or fresh Fava Beans!

Since this bean is such a staple in Egyptian cuisine, they are dried to be used all throughout the year, not only in season. But this means that we have a small window to use these nice fresh beans. This is perfect since it is now Lent, and the Egyptian Coptic Christians fast a vegan diet during these days until Easter. In Egypt, vegan food is called 'Seyami' coming from the word 'Seyam' which means Fasting. The term 'Seyami' however could include fish products, depending on which fast is ongoing.

Can't get much fresher than that!

Usually, they are eaten as a snack, like our beloved Lebb [roasted watermelon or pumpkin seeds]. I recently stopped at a roadside stall and bought about 5 kilograms [about 10 lbs!] of the un-shelled legume after seeing them so fresh; they looked like they were just picked that morning! After lugging them up the stairs to my apartment, it didn't seem like that good of an idea anymore. The beans brown quickly and should be used right away after shelling. What was I going to do with all these fresh beans before they went bad? After brainstorming, I came up with some traditional and not so orthodox ways to use Fava Beans.

From soup to nuts, I found things to do with Fava Beans! I made it a point to keep it all vegan, so here is a special non-carnivore post for a change. Have a 6 course bean menu [no dessert, don't worry, I didn't get that crazy]!

Kind of felt like I was on Iron Chef when I was thinking up these recipes, or even the Futurama Iron Chef spoof episode. The secret ingredient is… SOYLENT GREEN! *drifts off and laughs*  

I will post one post a day for the next week in this series, so stay tuned!

1- Snacking on Fava Beans

For the all Egyptian guide on how to snack on Fava [Broad] beans follow the link.

2- Thyme and Fava Bean Salad

This fresh fava bean salad is perfect to accompany any dish.

3-  Thai Inspired: Tom Yam Vegan Fava Bean Soup]

A real twist to an Asian classic, this version of Tom Yam soup is a must try!

4- Fava Bean Cilantro Rice
The best rice and bean dish out there!

5- Pan-fried Vegan Bean Burgers with an Oriental Twist

Any burger afficianado will appreciate this bean burger dish. 

6- Broad Bean Tomato Stew

My love for stews made this a no brainer. Trying to merge traditional Egyptian style cooking in this bean stew really worked!


7- How to Store and Preserve Fava Beans

Stock up for the rest of the year with these easy ways for preserving beans.

Beans! How do you feel about them?