The beans inside their pods are seeds and benefit from the same sprouting as all other seeds and nuts especially late in the season.  It seems that soaking the beans over night and adding a bit of baking soda takes away most of the flatulence problem.  When you grow beans it is also said “the more you pick the more you get” so harvest often.  My husband loves to grow beans, he loves to eat them too.  In the fall the green skins start getting stringy and tough, that’s when I throw them in the compost pile and just cook the beans.  Some years we have dry beans left over which store easily for winter, or even longer.  Scott grows a lot, of different beans and we honor the old southern tradition of eating black-eyed peas on New Years day for good luck. It’s very simple to cook beans and they can be seasoned and concocted in an endless variety of ways.  Here are 2 simple easy recipes.  One is done in a crock pot and can be left for 8 or so hours.

An old song goes, “Beans, beans the musical fruit the more you eat the more you toot”.  As I mentioned above soaking the dry or fresh beans and adding a bit of baking soda seems to take care if this.

Soaking Beans Fresh or Dry

To soak beans, cover beans with a about 1/2-1 inch of filtered, spring, or clean well water.  Make sure the water is unchlorinated.  Add 1/4 to 1/2 teaspoon of baking soda. If the beans soak up all the water add more.  Cover and soak beans over night up to 12 hours.  Longer soaking should be refrigerated.  Rinse and discard soaking water.

Cooking beans after soaking

• Cover beans with 1/2-1 inch of water, same quality as above
• 1/2 to 1 tablespoon of sea salt
• seasoning to your taste
• optional; bacon, left over bones from pork roast
• optional, chopped onion
• optional, whole jalapenos peppers

For stove top cooking; bring to a gentle boil.  Reduce to simmer.  Cook until tender.  Fresh beans will take from 3 to 4 hours approx..  Dry beans can take longer even though they also have been soaked.

For crock pot, cook on high for an hour or so, until they bubble up it’s like a gentle boil, but looks a bit different in the crock pot.  Reduce to low and continue to cook 5-8 hours.  The last 2 pictures are my beans in the crock pot.  You can see I like to add jalapenos peppers from the garden, and a pork bone.

Now the beans can be enjoyed in countless ways, or just as they are.

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