Beans

Lately I've been attempting to better utilize our food storage, beans being my most recent focus. I bought an electric pressure cooker . . . it's a pretty cool appliance. The only exposure I have had with a pressure cooker was my mom's old pressure cooker which scared me half to death, and my own pressure canner I use when canning my garden produce. So having a pressure canner that regulates itself, with a timer, etc., etc., is pretty exciting to me. It cooks beans in much less time than just on the stovetop. (It does alot of other things, too, but maybe that's for another post.)

A blog I follow suggests cooking up extra beans to freeze, so they'll be ready to use in any recipe. Most of my recipes have been pretty standard, usually soups and chilis. BUT . . . I came upon this recipe for Black Bean Brownies. Actually, they were served at a ladies' church meeting one evening - and they were pretty good! So I decided to try them at home. Being a little suspicious, I Googled the recipe to see if others had any reviews. There were plenty, and most of them positive. Several said they added a tsp. of baking powder, but now that I've made them, I don't think I'd add it again. We prefer fudgy type brownies and I think the baking powder made them more cakey.  A full cup of mini-chocolate chips is a good addition. But truly, you can taste nothing of the beans. So adding the nutrition and fiber of the beans was definitely worth it.

Growing up in our home, garbanzo beans were always referred to as "butt beans", because, well, I think it's pretty obvious. I'll let you judge for yourself:

So you probably think I'm going to post a recipe with butt beans in it, huh? Nope. But I am going to post a recipe of some yummy bar cookies I made today that have an interesting ingredient in them . . . Kraft Caramel Bits. Check out what they look like:

Now look a little closer:

Hmmmm. Looks alot like a butt bean to me . . . "but" (sorry, I couldn't resist!) they definitely don't TASTE like a butt bean. Without further adieu, here's the link for the Oatmeal Chocolate Caramel Bars. And here's my picture of both bar cookies:

Disclaimer: I'm not in any way, shape, or form, meaning to insult garbanzo beans. I truly do like them, salads, soups, hummus or whatever! My mom used to soak them in Italian dressing and eat them for lunch, squeezing the little bugger out of his skin before popping them into her mouth. Gotta love ya, Mom!