Canning | Cuban black beans

  The fruit trees are bare (with the exception of our wonderful citrus!), but the shelves are not!

  Did I ever tell you about the time I almost made my family really, really sick?  Okay, I might have purposely kept that story to myself, but now I have your attention.  Our family has black beans multiple times a week and while making a big ole batch and freezing is fine, the beans weren't always ready in a pinch because I don't like using the microwave.  And usually when we need beans for dinner, we are needing them in a pinch.  Long story short, I decided we should just can them.  The water bath way.  This would be the time that reading recipes would actually benefit me in life, but I did not.  We canned them and a week later opened up a can for our usual burrito dinner that I make when I can't figure out what to make.  Mike kept saying, "do you smell that?"  I kinda did, but I just thought the extra sharp cheddar was extra, extra sharp.  While we were cleaning up and I was putting the leftover beans into another container I got the whiff he was talking about.  I immediately searched online if it was okay to can beans and very quickly I realized you must use a pressure canner for non-acidic foods.  Our regulars, jam and applesauce, both acidic.  Beans, nope.  The sites continued on to say that if you do not pressure cook, they could get botulism and have a "cheesy" smell.  I could have killed my family.  Not really, because if it was really bad I think we would have known right away, but still.  Fortunately, none of us even got mildly sick.

  All that to say, we are now the proud owners of a massive pressure canner that we requested for Christmas from my dad.  And our shelves are now stocked with homemade goodness.  Which is always better than mass produced and store bought.

A little sample:

chicken broth, enchilada sauce, turkey broth, beef broth, chickpeas, and my black beans

I have also canned chilaquile sauce, but that didn't make it too long on the shelf.

This is seriously life-changing, people.  No more digging to the bottom of my freezer in the garage and getting frost-bitten hands.  No bueno!

Also canned these pint jars of "Cuban beans" trying to replicate the Cuban Style Black Beans from Trader Joes.  Have you ever tried those?  Put them inside a quesadilla and you're good!  Let me boast and just say that mine are even better than those beans.

Cuban Black Beans
2 cups dried black beans
2 Tbls. sea salt
2 tsp. cumin
1 large onion diced
2 cans green chiles or 2 poblano peppers, diced

Directions eerily similar to my black beans...

1. Soak dry beans in water for 7 hours to overnight, about 3x the amount of water to beans.  Make sure they are completely covered.  I soak mine in the same dutch oven I will later cook them in.  (Why dirty another dish?)  If I forget to soak them overnight, I just start soaking first thing in the morning for dinner.

2.  Rinse beans completely.  Add 6 cups water to pot with beans.

3.  Bring beans to boil and turn to a low simmer for 1-1.5 hours.  Do not add anything to the water until after the 1-1.5 hour simmer.  Test beans for your desired softness at this point.

4.  Add in the remaining ingredients and continue to simmer for another 45 minutes to 1 hour.  (For this recipe I happened to have poblanos in my fridge from the market and I used 1 can of green chiles and 1 poblano.)

5.  Can according to manufacturer's canning instructions.  Or freeze in smaller containers.

  I hope to try some more stuff.  One day I want to have a canning pantry wall.  And I want it to be FULL.  So, I need to figure out what else to can.  Maybe I'll get into pickling.

Happy friday!